[Baltimore Sun] State approves $10 million grant for downtown Baltimore revitalization
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A state spending board approved a $10 million grant Wednesday to go toward revitalization efforts in downtown Baltimore.
The three-member Board of Public Works approved the capital grant for use by the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore to cover safety and security measures and streetscape improvements in the city’s central business district.
Gov. Wes Moore said the funds will go toward making the city safer and more competitive. Moore serves on the board along with Comptroller Brooke E. Lierman and Dereck Davis, the state treasurer.
“We aren’t going to choose between building a thriving economy and ensuring true public safety — we can, and we will, pursue both at the same time,” Moore said in a news release about the grant.
The Downtown Partnership has been taking steps to make the business district’s streets more inviting and walkable and draw more traffic to shops and services as the area has become more residential.
Shelonda Stokes, the Downtown Partnership’s president, called the grant “significant” and said it would accelerate efforts to enhance quality of life, public safety and capital improvements in the central business district and in surrounding blocks that receive services from the group.
The grant will pay for an expansion and upgrades to Liberty Dog Park at West Baltimore Street and Hopkins Plaza; transit hub reconstruction at the entrances of Charles Center Metro Station and Lexington Market Station; and streetscape upgrades along Eutaw Street. The partnership also is replacing trash receptacles throughout downtown.
The nonprofit group, which works with local businesses and government officials to promote economic development, unveiled its annual report last week, highlighting nearly $7 billion in development projects planned downtown through 2028. An infusion of workers have come downtown as part of a relocation of more than 6,000 state employees from the aging State Center office district.
“The momentum underway in downtown is unmistakable,” Stokes said in a news release.
The Moore administration had allocated $9 million in capital grants to the group in the two previous fiscal years through the state Department of Housing and Community Development.
Another $67.5 million from the state is being invested in a proposed redevelopment of downtown’s Harborplace, a plan by MCB Real Estate to replace the aging twin shopping and dining pavilions with four taller buildings that would include office space and a 900-unit apartment tower. It also would add a new park, two-tier promenades and realigned roadways.
After a challenge of those plans, the Supreme Court of Maryland cleared the way last week for voters in the upcoming election to decide whether to approve a zoning change needed for redevelopment.
Have a news tip? Contact Lorraine Mirabella at lmirabella@baltsun.com, (410) 332-6672 and @lmirabella on X.
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