Harborplace developer says Baltimore’s future hinges on fixing the ‘zombie apocalypse’ downtown

Barely any restaurants. Empty storefronts. Plunging real estate values.

Downtown Baltimore is in a tailspin, said P. David Bramble, co-founder of MCB Real Estate, and it’s threatening to take the whole city down with it.

Speaking to a crowd of real estate professionals Thursday, Bramble said the first step to transforming Baltimore is MCB’s proposed redevelopment of Harborplace and the Inner Harbor. One of the most important things that people can do right now, he said, is rally around that plan.

Bramble, who has declined media interviews in recent months, made those comments at the Recharge Baltimore Housing Summit at Coppin State University, an event host by the Maryland Mortgage Bankers and Brokers Association.

Bramble gave few specifics about the redevelopment of Harborplace, its financing, or its timeline. Construction was supposed to start this year, but he said the project still needs permits. He didn’t give specifics. Now construction is expected to begin in the first quarter next year.

MCB wants to build two residential towers in the Inner Harbor that will include a luxury hotel, according to financial documents reviewed by The Banner. The average monthly rent at the towers is expected to be between $4,438 and $7,000. A retail building dubbed “The Sail” for its shape and an office building are expected to have rents nearly double those of similar projects.

Even with a proposed tax break wiping away almost all of its property taxes for 25 years, the project will struggle to attract investors, financial documents show.

Bramble did not talk about financing or attracting investors, but he told the audience that MCB would get the project done.

Still, he repeatedly emphasized that it will not be easy.

“[Developers] take a tremendous amount of a risk to get a project from an idea on a board to financed and under construction,” Bramble said. “But the risk is worth it. The risk is worth it because Baltimore needs this project. It needs Harborplace to happen.”

He spoke alongside Craig Thompson, chair of the Maryland Stadium Authority and a partner at the law firm Venable LLP, on a panel titled “Betting Big on Baltimore: Anchor Projects and the City’s Magnetic Future.”

When Bramble was asked at the beginning of the panel what drives him to keep betting on Baltimore, he answered with a joke: “I think we need to stop drinking so much.”

Then he got serious. Baltimore is “really awesome,” he said, citing its culture, its food scene and its neighborhoods. There are world-class universities and hospitals, he said, plus a major port and easy access to the mid-Atlantic and Northeast.

Clearly, Baltimore is undervalued, Bramble said, and a savvy investor is always looking for a smart place to put their money. But in order to unlock those economic gains, Baltimore needs to refresh its downtown, he said.

“I’m not saying that once Harborplace is done that every neighborhood is going to be full of candy and unicorns. That’s not true,” he said. “But what I am saying is that if we don’t make the appropriate investments, you really won’t be able to do anything, anywhere.”

“What thriving city has a downtown that has a downtown that looks like a zombie apocalypse?” he said. “The answer is none. It doesn’t work like that. It’s the beating heart of our city.”

He circled back to the idea later

“That’s what downtown gives off,” he said. “That we are dying.”

Thompson said the redevelopment of Harborplace won’t get done without Bramble at the helm.

“When you hear anything or read anything that’s negative, just know that’s clickbait,” Thompson said. “There is widespread support for this, and we should make sure we support what Dave is doing.”

Bramble said that MCB’s proposed redevelopment of Harborplace is actually more popular than the original Harborplace plans put forth by James Rouse. He pointed to a 2024 ballot question related to Harborplace that passed with 60% of the vote, compared to a ballot question in 1978 for Rouse’s vision that passed with about 54% of the vote.

When asked what people can do to make the revitalization of downtown and Harborplace a reality, Bramble said it’s important to be optimistic.

“The role right now is really just more support,” he said. “It doesn’t require you to do anything other than to be a cheerleader for Baltimore.”

Bramble said he has “put more than a half a billion dollars” into successful projects currently operating in the city, but at every turn he’s faced negativity.

“In Baltimore, we have a tendency to run ourselves down. To say, ‘That will never happen. This won’t ever work. Blah, blah, blah,’” he said. “It’s up to us, and I’ve said this before: There’s no magic fairy coming to sprinkle dust on us.”

“Yes, Harborplace is critical. It is necessary, but it isn’t sufficient for what we want to see for Baltimore,” Bramble said, adding that neighborhoods need to be invested in, too.

Still, fixing downtown will be a catalyst for job creation and economic growth, he said, and it will take buy-in from the government.

“As people said, the math doesn’t straight math. You need support, you need subsidies,” Bramble said. “But the investments are worth it.”

It’s up to local and state leaders to stand tall, Bramble said, since some people will fight new developments simply because they don’t want change.

“They have to show leadership,” Bramble said. “Sometimes leadership is telling the person who’s screaming at the community meeting to sit down and let someone else talk.”

Near the end of the panel, Gene Frazier, a Baltimore mortgage lender, lauded Bramble and Thompson. He started to ask if people ever thanked them when Bramble jumped in.

“I’m a developer,” he said. “No one ever says, ‘Thank you.’”