Baltimore Condos
Baltimore Condos have been a huge contributor to the development around the city's Inner Harbor during the last year, due to the low interest rates and an intensive effort by city officials to encourage more residents downtown. Projects including ARC Wheeler's planned 59-story tower at the former McCormick spice plant on Light Street and the conversion of the Pier Side Apartments by Harbor View Properties Development Co. are only two examples of residential developers' aspiration for Baltimore waterfront. Even the World Trade Center (owned by the state), which is one of Baltimore's first waterfront office buildings, could have a condo component after the Maryland Department of Transportation sells it. However, one developer had doubts that the Baltimore condos wave would be able to last much longer. Longtime plans were made by Baltimore's Union Box Co. to develop Union Wharf in the city's Fells Point neighborhood, giving the majority of waterfront space there to either apartments or Baltimore condos Nevertheless, Union Box lately suggested cutting down the number of residential offerings at the site, deciding instead to boost the office component to about 150,000 square feet. The company also made plans to first establish the office, whilst it had originally planned on the Baltimore condos coming first. Larry Silverstein, president of Union Box said that maybe since everyone is putting residential on the waterfront there suddenly there is an opportunity to do office because no one is doing it.
There is huge demand for office space. The emphasis of the waterfront office space astonished a few of the members of the city's Urban Design and Architecture Review Panel, which revised the company's fresh plans at a hearing. Architect Jim Carroll informed the panel that Union Box acknowledged that the market was shifting along the waterfront. The Baltimore's commercial real estate brokers were certainly not surprised. It often wondered when looking at the residential market, “when will it be tapped out?” Asked T. Courtenay Jenkins III, a broker for Trammell Crow Co. There is a surplus of residential product now, the developers are most likely balancing and making a business decision. Developer Edwin F. Hale's 500,000-square-foot Canton Crossing, an office tower on the eastern shore of the Inner Harbor, proves the demand for waterfront office and even extends beyond the Baltimore's central business district.
The old theory is that if one acquires a vast amount of residential that moves downtown then offices would want to move back downtown because the workforce is downtown. The vice president of The Bozzuto Group, which assisted in the development of the Spinnaker Bay Baltimore condos at Inner Harbor East, said he would definitely give a lot of thought towards constructing other Baltimore condos on city's waterfront. If another project was to be carried out, something that should be looked at is the amount of condo units that are coming online. Developers are looking at what is in the making and they are seeing that there is a large amount of units coming online. The office vacancy rates decreased to 17.1 percent last year, which was 18.2 percent in 2004. However, those rates are significantly lower for waterfront Class A Buildings. Along with development opportunities in low supply downtown, the former News American site at Pratt and South streets being one of the few ideal choices, office opportunities in alternative waterfront locales are apt for development of offices. Jenkins said that Fells Point would be an extremely pleasing spot, as the neighborhood presently has few office contributions. Entertainment and Eating facilities, as well as the young professional settling in the neighborhoods' reformed row houses and new Baltimore condos, are amenities for any business.
