Reawakening a Post-industrial Waterfront

A peninsula in South Baltimore that sat largely unused for decades is being transformed into a master-planned, mixed-use neighborhood.

Baltimore has experienced decades of intensive growth along its waterfront, transforming many former industrial sites into mixed-use developments. Notable examples include Harbor East, which spans 20 acres, and Harbor Point, covering 27 acres. With initial development around Baltimore’s Inner Harbor having consumed virtually all vacant former industrial sites of any size along its main harbor channel, developers have turned their attention to other shores around Charm City.

Directly south of the city’s historic Federal Hill neighborhood, a 235-acre site on the middle branch of the Patapsco River had sat largely unused since the mid-1970s. The site is being transformed into Baltimore Peninsula, a $5.5 billion collaboration between Under Armour founder Kevin Plank’s Sagamore Ventures, MAG Partners and MacFarlane Partners, with investment from Goldman Sachs’ Urban Investment Group.

The idea originated with Plank, who through Sagamore Ventures owned a considerable majority of the site. The project’s development was initially charted by Bethesda, Maryland-based Weller Development under the name of Port Covington. This involved a few early hopes that didn’t pan out, including developing a biotech hub and a cybersecurity cluster, and trying to attract Amazon’s HQ2, which ultimately located approximately 90 minutes south in Virginia. In November 2022, Weller Development was replaced by MAG Partners, a Women’s Business Enterprise-certified real estate development company founded by Mary Anne Gilmartin, and San Francisco-based MacFarlane Partners. The current state of the project now opening was substantively the result of Weller’s planning.

As the first phase of an approved master plan calling for more than 14 million square feet of development, the project team has thus far constructed over 1.2 million square feet of office space, more than 400 residential units, an extended-stay hotel, a variety of retail and dining options, and 40 acres of waterfront parks. Construction on these elements began in May 2019, with more than $1 billion invested thus far.

Office leasing quickly picked up under the new development team. From December 2022 to December 2023, the development accounted for 30% of total new office leasing in the city despite accounting for just 1.8% of the city’s office space. The development’s website claims a 40-minute commute reduction for workers from surrounding counties compared with office locations in the Inner Harbor. In addition, its residential offerings are now over 90% leased.

From Industrial Past to Mixed-use Promise

The site contained early fortifications built to provide support for Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. It then hosted an assortment of industrial uses in the 19th century: a brickyard, a distillery and even a short-lived facility for building “cigar boat” steamships. Eventually it became a terminal for the Western Maryland Railroad. At its peak the site contained 55 miles of track, dock facilities and locomotive repair shops within a footprint of more than 180 acres. By 1929, according to Harold A. Williams’ The Western Maryland Railway Story: A Chronicle of the First Century, 1852-1952, the terminal could “store over 100,000 tons of freight, and the docks could accommodate seven ocean vessels.”

The railroad was acquired by the predecessor to CSX in 1973 and soon entirely idled. Over subsequent decades, the site became the focus of a variety of civic hopes, none of which materialized. At one point, it was considered as the site for a new baseball stadium before Oriole Park at Camden Yards was built downtown, just west of the Inner Harbor. There were a few piecemeal developments, including a building and printing press for the Baltimore Sun newspaper as well as a strip mall containing a Sam’s Club and Walmart, but most of the site remained vacant.

Sagamore Ventures began acquiring land for the present development in 2014, assembling 26 parcels.

In 2016, Baltimore approved the project, then known as Port Covington, with a $660 million tax increment financing arrangement, the largest ever awarded in that city. The deal involved a community benefits agreement and memorandum of understanding that included $39 million in direct benefits for six communities around the development and $55 million in citywide benefits spanning workforce development programs, education, recreational facility commitments and more. The agreement specified a 20% affordable housing requirement, a hiring requirement of 50% for Baltimore city residents, and additional use of minority-owned and women-owned business enterprises.

The site’s rezoning from industrial uses permitted a wide range of mixed-use construction, with 100-foot height restrictions along the waterfront to preserve view sheds and taller construction permissible slightly inland.

The site required a substantial amount of environmental mitigation, a process begun in 2016 and ending in 2023. “We have a unique, controlled soil management plan that allows for soils to be transferred between various properties,” explained Jennifer Hearn, director of development at MAG Partners. Impacted soils were permitted to be transferred to lower depths on the site, capped, and then covered with clean fill.

In September 2017, Goldman Sachs’ Urban Investment Group added an equity investment of $233 million.

When MAG Partners and MacFarlane Partners took over the project in 2022, they invested an undisclosed amount and changed the name from Port Covington to Baltimore Peninsula.

Planning a Neighborhood From Scratch

The developers were intent on a mixed-use development from the start, and their explicit and continued intention, Hearn said, was “building a neighborhood” on a site that had previously seen only piecemeal, automobile-dependent development. Baltimore Peninsula is just south of traditionally dense Baltimore rowhouse neighborhoods but separated by Interstate 95, railroad tracks, and CSX and Maryland Transit Authority rail yards.

Hearn said the logic behind planning the initial phase of the development was self-evident. “We have 2.5 miles of waterfront access,” she pointed out. “It’s really rare in the city to have public access to such a large amount, so we started on the waterfront.” The project team straightened and expanded a previously winding main artery, Cromwell Street, into a principal boulevard and laid out a grid of streets designed to provide a framework for pedestrian-friendly urbanism. Infrastructure for about 15 city blocks was constructed as part of the first phase and completed in early 2023, with more to come.

A linchpin of the development — though not formally a part of Baltimore Peninsula — is a new headquarters for Plank’s Under Armour sports apparel and performance company. The company recently moved its headquarters from nearby Locust Point to a new complex on-site. It includes a five-story, 280,00-square-foot mass timber building designed by Gensler, an NCAA-regulation track facility and multisport field with seating for 1,400 people, and a flagship store. The former Walmart and Sam’s Club buildings at the location were converted into office and product testing spaces. The headquarters complex, located on 40 acres of land, will accommodate over 1,600 employees.

The developers’ intention for Baltimore Peninsula was to build a mix of uses simultaneously, combining office, residential and commercial uses in its first phase.

Morris Adjmi Architects designed Rye Street Market, a multibuilding complex described as “the town square of Baltimore Peninsula.” It contains 228,000 square feet of office space and 29,230 square feet of retail space. The office space is nearly entirely leased by a variety of tenants, including H. Chambers Company, an architecture and design company; Longeviti Neuro Solutions; Volo Sports; the American headquarters of Italian spirits company Disarrono; One Bar Mining; the Baltimore Ravens (whose NFL stadium is about a mile away); and additional space for Sagamore Ventures.

Morris Adjmi Architects was given creative freedom to craft a pedestrian-friendly retail and office core for the complex. The firm designed four buildings divided by alleyways (one of which slices diagonally through the site) surrounding a central courtyard. Three of the buildings feature corrugated metal facades, and the largest is clad in brick. Principal Morris Adjmi explained, “We took a contextual approach to the facade materials, researching the built environment of Baltimore and its waterfront and casting a particular focus on the shipping industry and naval buildings. The cross-break metal panels and corrugated facades speak to this naval architecture, while the brick building and arches form a backdrop that communicates with the striking historical architecture of the city.”

CFG Bank, the largest bank in Baltimore, has moved its headquarters into another first-phase building, 2455 House Street. Designed by MGMA Design, the seven-story structure contains another 212,000 square feet of office space, 18,711 square feet of retail, and an amenity penthouse with outdoor space. The building features virtually column-free floor plates.

Retail, Hospitality and Residential

Rye Street Tavern and Sagamore Spirit distillery were opened in new buildings along the waterfront in spring 2017. Retail space, including a variety of restaurants, is included in other buildings along the development’s principal east-west artery, Cromwell Street.

In July 2024, the development also added a Roost Hotel, a hospitality element that is new to the city. Roost, a Philadelphia-based hotel company, operates eight extended-stay luxury hotels in several East Coast and Midwestern locations. This is one of two new-build locations so far for the company, designed by Baltimore’s Hord Coplan Macht. Chris Allen, Roost’s director of sales, explained, “The concept is known for bridging the boutique hotel experience with apartment-style living. We are the first high-design, extended-stay hotel in the Baltimore market.” Roost Baltimore includes 81 hotel rooms and 40 apartment units, with the latter branded as 2460 Terrapin.

Hord Coplan Macht also designed one of two residential structures built to date in Baltimore Peninsula. Rye House contains 200 market-rate and 54 affordable units. Also open is Torti Gallas + Partners’ 250 Mission, which features 127 market-rate and 35 affordable apartment units. Occupancy began in April 2023.

Hearn said the choice to not cluster affordable housing in one building was deliberate and “is something we hope is a model throughout future development sites.”

She also extolled the benefits of brownfield residential construction: “We’re fortunate in that we’re a site where we’re not displacing anybody because nobody lives there. We’re just attracting new residents, new tenants.”

Connecting the Peninsula

Baltimore Peninsula was planned out with complete streets from the start, including multiple bike lanes. These traits will continue in future gridding, most notably around a future boulevard, Hart Street, that will connect directly to I-95. The city plans to make pedestrian improvements to the existing Hanover Street bridge over I-95 and linking to downtown, and another pedestrian bridge is planned to span the highway along Charles Street to link Baltimore Peninsula directly to neighborhoods to the north.

The Baltimore Yacht Basin Marina and one working pier are currently on-site, but the project team has hopes of additional pier renovations and increased aquatic accessibility for everything from fishing to water taxi service. Sagamore Ventures acquired Harbor Boating, the company that operates Baltimore’s water taxi services, in 2016 and means to expand its operations, although these plans have not yet been finalized. Kayak launches have already been placed.

What the Future Holds

The next phase for the site is still to be determined, but there is ample additional space available, with only 1.2 million square feet of a potential 14 million square feet developed.

A few likely candidates for use are already present, as a handful of older structures remain on-site at Baltimore Peninsula. These include the idled historic Gould Street power station and a former concrete plant. The project team would ideally like to identify some type of adaptive reuse for the power station. “We would love to see it in some sort of civic use,” Hearn said. A return to power generation is also conceivable, as the plant stopped generation only in 2019. As for the concrete plant, the project team is considering potential uses as an entertainment venue or a beer garden.

Hearn said the project team intends to develop space for both larger and smaller office tenants. The team is also eager to draw leases from beyond Baltimore. “We don’t want to just relocate tenants from the central business district,” Hearn said. “We’d like to bring in tenants from outside of the city.”

In terms of retail and amenities, the project team aspires to attract a mix of local and national tenants. “We are certainly looking for more entertainment uses and possibly a stadium,” Hearn said. Baltimore Peninsula has been mentioned as a potential location for a minor league multiuse soccer stadium affiliated with D.C. United’s Major League Soccer franchise.

Anthony Paletta is a freelance writer living in New York City.

Making Room to Play Baltimore Peninsula has planned 40 acres of park space for the development and has opened several parks thus far. Chicago-based landscape architecture firm Hoerr Schaudt adapted different strategies for each. The waterfront Rye Street Park, fronted by the Sagamore Spirit distillery and Rye Street Tavern, is intended as a gathering space, largely consisting of hardscape. Nick Fobes, a partner at Hoerr Schaudt explained, “We were trying to take cues from old European cobblestone plazas while creating some relief and providing greenspace with planting beds and three large sycamores.” Elijah’s Park, named after former Maryland Congressman and civil rights leader Elijah Cummings, contains a 4-by-8-foot mosaic inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and designed by high school students at the Choice Program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County under the supervision of artist Carien Quiroga. The park also includes an aquatic-themed playground featuring a Baltimore blue crab climbing structure and slide. Pergolas are intended to eventually support climbing vines. A large lawn serves as an active play space, concealing sewerage beneath. Other recent additions at Baltimore Peninsula include Volo Sports, a community sports organization that is opening Club Volo, a venue that hosts beach volleyball courts, pickleball courts, bocce, cornhole, and fields for kickball, soccer and flag football.

• Magazine Article
• Business/Trends
• Hospitality
• Multifamily Property
• Mixed Use
• Office
• Redevelopment
• Retail