Downtown Baltimore’s big pit could finally get filled in

While a prime piece of downtown Baltimore real estate sat vacant for over a decade, city officials dangled a variety of carrots to spur development.

Now comes the stick. The city’s housing department recently issued a code violation against the property.

The former home of the Morris A. Mechanic Theatre, which was demolished in 2014, is fenced off from public access. Despite repeated complaints from residents and the real estate community about the eyesore that is 1 W. Baltimore St., the city has been unable to spur Baltimore County-based David S. Brown Enterprises into any sort of development.

It’s remained a giant hole in the ground.

On May 6, the Baltimore Department of Housing and Community Development cited the owner, saying the company would need to regrade the site or potentially face recurring fines.

The violation notice came two days after The Banner published an article on the pit’s eligibility for a newly expanded tax credit that could be worth tens of millions of dollars for the site.

City code requires properties to be graded and maintained to ensure water drains away from adjoining properties, preventing the accumulation of stagnant water and soil erosion. The former Mechanic Theatre site is heavily sloped toward a neighboring underground parking garage and is covered in artificial turf.

Neither Mayor Brandon Scott’s office nor David S. Brown Enterprises responded to requests for comment.

For years, Brown Enterprises Chairman Howard Brown had said his company needed tax incentives, specifically the newly created one, if it were ever to redevelop the parcel.

Baltimore has the highest property tax rate in the state, though the Mechanic Theatre site is located within a state-designated Enterprise Zone and could be eligible for city tax credits for new construction — incentives that could lower the site’s property tax bill.

This spring, the Maryland legislature passed an emergency bill making any downtown Baltimore property eligible for an incentive known as a payment in lieu of taxes, or PILOT, if the owner commits to improvements or new construction.

Like other city centers across the country, downtown Baltimore has suffered in recent years. Office towers have sold for fractions of their prior sale prices, and Scott said assessed property values across the neighborhood are down more than $326 million year over year.

Not far from the Mechanic Theatre site is another empty lot owned by David S. Brown Enterprises, as well as the Superblock, a collection of city-owned properties, most of which have also been demolished and sit vacant.

City officials in May said the Mechanic Theatre site was “one of our top priorities” and that they were “super excited” about the prospect of getting something built there. A spokesperson for Scott’s office added at the time that the site could be a candidate for an additional incentive known as “transit-oriented development” because it sat atop a subway station.

And it’s not as if there weren’t plans for what to do with the pit. Howard Brown in 2012 put forward a proposal to build two apartment towers and retail space on the site. His company knocked down the old Mechanic Theatre, a divisive but important piece of Brutalist architecture, two years later.

The May 6 code violation appears to be the only one on record for the site since then. It carries a $500-per-day fine, which, if allowed to continue, could lead the city to place a lien on the property.

Tammy Hawley, a spokesperson for Baltimore’s Department of Housing and Community Development, said in an email that Brown Enterprises had applied for permits to do work there, which typically would mean no fine would be issued. However, no records could be found in the city’s online permit database.

As of Friday afternoon, no work appeared to have been done at the site.