Maryland’s State Center could become Baltimore’s best TOD
The Maryland State Center and its connections to transit. Image by the author using Google Earth.
The Maryland State Center’s soon-to-be-empty buildings and parking lots occupy some of the most prime land in Baltimore. A new redevelopment effort may turn it into something great.
For decades, the State Center has been a morose island of terrible urbanism. Its collection of 20th Century office buildings and wide expanses of sun-baked parking lots create a dead zone in the heart of the city.
This would be an unfortunate situation anywhere, but the State Center’s particular location makes it particularly galling.
It sits at the immediate entrance to one of Baltimore’s very few urban subway stations, and one of only two that doubles as a light rail connection. And it’s strategically located at the exact spot where all the dozens of neighborhoods extending northwest from downtown meet the main center city grid.
Baltimore State Center today by Google used with permission.
It’s the perfect location for a dense, mixed-use district, and one of the worst imaginable locations for a car-oriented, fenced-off monolith.
But good news: A fix is on the horizon, and it could be great.
What’s happening now
By the end of this spring, the office buildings will be empty. Their 3,000-some workers are relocating to offices in downtown Baltimore.
With the State Center no longer a state center, Baltimore will be creating a new master plan for the site.
The work is charged to “create a vision for the State Center site guiding eventual redevelopment as a Transit Oriented Development and anchor for this area of Baltimore,” and is scheduled to be complete this summer.
Details remain very much up in the air, but the opportunity here is nothing short of tremendous, and it’s safe to assume the new plan will enliven a key part of the city.
This is the second attempt
The old plan, no longer happening by statecenter.org.
This is the second try for a State Center redevelopment plan. The first attempt began all the way back in Governor Robert Ehrlich’s administration, ultimately settling on a plan for new office, residential, school, and retail buildings, including a grocery store.
But the project was challenged in court, and Governor Larry Hogan canceled it in 2016.
That may have been a blessing in disguise, given the dramatic shift from office to residential demand during the intervening years.
Since then, the State of Maryland has transfered control of the site to the City of Baltimore, clearing the way for a fresh plan, and hopefully, ultimately, a new transit-oriented midtown for Baltimore.