If Baltimore wants to get more people to live and work downtown, it needs a greater variety of stores, better restaurants, more to see and do in general. It also needs more attractive public spaces - not just passageways between office towers, but inviting parks and plazas where people will want to linger, meet friends, and get some fresh air, after work and on weekends.

Toward that end, the city took a giant step in the right direction with the recently completed, $7.5-million makeover of Center Plaza, a once-barren open space that has been transformed to an oasis of greenery in the heart of downtown.

Dedicated last month after six years of design and construction, the 3-acre park shows what planners can do when they get serious about improving the quality of life in the city. In many ways, it's a prototype for the way downtown Baltimore can and should reinvent itself to be more vibrant, livable and welcoming.

The transformation of Center Plaza grew out of a design competition sponsored in 2002 by the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore, a nonprofit corporation that works to make center city a better place for businesses, employees, residents and visitors.

Aware that downtown is becoming more of a mixed-use neighborhood as older office buildings are converted to apartments and hotels, the partnership's leaders sought ideas for improving the public realm.

They placed a high priority on transforming Center Plaza because it was one of two public spaces created as part of Charles Center, the 33-acre district where downtown's redevelopment started in the 1950s, and had fallen into disrepair. Located north of Fayette Street between Charles and Liberty streets - actually the roof of an underground garage - it's an important link between the center city, the west side and Charles Street, with more than 8,100 office workers, 1,800 apartments and 1,500 hotel rooms within a one-block radius.

Center Plaza had also fallen out of fashion as public spaces go. When it opened in 1970, it was seen as a model of urban design - a no-nonsense public space that was considered clean, modern, easy to maintain. But the abundance of concrete also made it feel cold and austere - a common flaw of 1970s-era architecture. With little greenery and few amenities, it came to be regarded as drab, lifeless, in need of an overhaul. In targeting Center Plaza for a makeover, the partnership was seeking to renew the area where Baltimore's downtown renewal began.

The winner of the competition was a team that included landscape architect Mahan Rykiel Associates, architect Brown Craig Turner; and civil engineer Rummel Klepper and Kahl, all of Baltimore; and Biederman Redevelopment Ventures of Chappaqua, N.Y., an urban management consultant best known for the much-acclaimed revival of Bryant Park in Manhattan.

This team envisioned Center Plaza as both an outdoor living room for Charles Center and a crossroads linking the surrounding areas. Team members proposed transforming Center Plaza with a mix of grass, flowers, trees and other features that were never part of the minimalist 1970s design, including a new stairway and sculptural glass canopy to connect Center Plaza with Charles Plaza to the north. They recommended filling the green space with portable chairs that people could arrange as they want, as visitors do in Bryant Park. In short, they wanted to change the area from hardscape to softscape, from an urban plaza to an urban park.

The completed project lost some of the architectural features proposed in the competition, including the stairway. But it kept the essence of the plan - replacement of the concrete plaza with a lawn, flowers and trees. The lawn is subdivided by two crushed-stone pathways that crisscross the space, marking "desire lines" that follow the way people naturally walk through the area.

One of the most noticeable changes is the introduction of a raised plant bed and series of nine fountains and steps along Fayette Street. They enclose the south end of the park while reducing traffic noise. With this buffer in place, Center Plaza doesn't bleed out into Fayette Street the way it did before. It feels more like a destination unto itself, rather than a place to pass through.

Much of the projects' success is due to the attention to detail on the part of the landscape architects, including Scott Rykiel, Joe Burkhardt and Brian Reetz. They defined the ground plane with paving materials that impart a human scale, and plants that add color and texture. Sections of lawn are outlined by handsome granite borders. Each fountain gives off a low spray of water that adds visual interest, and each has a small, shallow bowl that discourages people from trying to get in the water.

So far, it's working nicely. The park got plenty of use this summer, while contractors were putting on the finishing touches. People come to sit on the benches, eat lunch, read a book, even sunbathe. At night, the space takes on a different character, when lights come on in the high-rise buildings all around, illuminating the park from every direction.

One ingredient is still largely missing. The designers' goal all along was to enliven the green space with shops and cafes on the ground level of buildings that frame it. Although some retail space is occupied on the park's north side, much of the space is still available for rent. Now that the landscaping is complete, it's easy to see the potential for commercial activity.

"It's not just the greenery. It's the edges," said Bryce Turner, who led the architectural side of the design team. "We felt the best way to revitalize the park was to create activity around the edges."

Even without the retail portion fully occupied, it's clear that the transformation of Center Plaza represents a new and promising approach to the design and management of public space in Baltimore.

Part of the difference is the way the makeover was funded and the park will be managed. The city owns the land, and both the city and state helped pay for the improvements. But much of the cost was borne by three private property owners who control buildings around the park, Southern Management, BGE Corp. and attorney Peter Angelos. A foundation has been created to manage the park and has hired a caretaker to oversee day-to-day operations. It's a public-private formula that responds to Mayor Sheila Dixon's call for a "cleaner, greener" Baltimore and works particularly well for a space such as this.

Kirby Fowler, president of the Downtown Partnership, sees Center Plaza's transformation as a metaphor for the sort of creative thinking and physical changes that are needed to keep downtown competitive with other parts of the city and region.

"It's all about reinventing downtown" to bring in "new energy and excitement," he said during the organization's annual meeting last month. Without steady improvements, "downtown will never achieve its full potential."

It's a timely lesson, as Baltimoreans prepare to elect a mayor for the next four years. Sure, downtown Baltimore might have gotten by with the status quo, a few hanging plants on the lampposts and an occasional cleanup crew from the Department of Public Works. But this is one instance where enough people realized that, for these times and this location, the status quo simply wasn't good enough.

ed.gunts@baltsun.com