Come downtown for one last lap through Harborplace

The air is cool and refreshing. The food court is quiet and clean. Storefronts are shuttered, restaurants are closed, and many of the businesses still operating are empty.

This is Harborplace, the pavilions that sparked America’s brief and passionate fascination with the “festival marketplace.” (Don’t call it a mall.)

When the developer behind a reimagined Inner Harbor unveiled plans in late 2023 to build a new Harborplace, there was a caveat: the destruction of the current one.

Although MCB Real Estate has brought in new, temporary tenants, much of Harborplace has lately felt like a ghost town.

So treat this summer like extra innings at an Orioles game. The next few weeks — when crowds gather for the tall ships of Sail250 and the Fourth of July fireworks — might be the final callback to the early days of Harborplace. In the 1980s, the pavilions regularly drew throngs of people and featured a diverse selection of stores and entertainment.

There might be a line inside Harborplace this weekend. But it won’t be at H&M or the Cheesecake Factory, both former tenants. It’ll probably be for the bathroom, because Harborplace has some of the only public restrooms in downtown Baltimore.

Nearly 300 years after the city was founded near this tidal basin, the Inner Harbor area still draws people to the water’s edge like a magnet.

On a balmy Wednesday evening this month, the promenade along the Inner Harbor was buzzing.

Dads pushed strollers. Joggers sweated under the sun as families sat on tree-shaded benches. Three women carrying yoga mats walked past a couple toting shopping bags while office workers and teenagers zipped by on bikes.

All of them were passing by the iconic green-roofed pavilions. Almost none of them stopped inside.

At 5 p.m., at Supano’s Sports Bar & Grill Steakhouse, the World Cup was on TV, the billiard balls were racked and the beer taps were ready. There wasn’t a single customer.

Almost an hour later, the dinner rush had arrived — two couples eating and two women sipping white wine at the bar.

There are signs of decay and disuse at Harborplace, such as chipped paint, rust and cordoned-off areas. Some of the bathroom sinks are encased in plastic. There’s not much reason to fix up something set to be demolished soon.

Aside from businesses such as Matriarch Coffee and the streetwear brand Motion Athletics, there’s not a lot left in Harborplace. There is no more Fudgery (and, by extension, Sisqo). Gone, too, are Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. and most of the local artisans and entrepreneurs who made this place unique. Even the Hooters, which became Harborplace’s longest-tenured restaurant in recent years, shut its doors in 2024.

The twin two-story pavilions along Pratt and Light streets are a reprieve from the hot sun and humid air. The few people wandering inside seemed more interested in nostalgia or sightseeing than shopping.

Outside, Aaron Jones, 27, sat on a bench. The Baltimorean said he comes to the area nearly every day in the summertime.

It’s not Harborplace that brings him here, he said. It’s the water. It’s seeing old friends and meeting new ones. It’s chasing geese off the piers and seeing fish jump in the water.

“I can come down here for hours, watch the water and never get tired of it,” he said. “It’s like one of my favorite safe places.”

A redeveloped Harborplace might be nice, he said, but its construction will disrupt a central part of his life — and for what?

He noted the families nearby and the kids playing.

“The life is already here,” he said. “They don’t need to rebuild this.”