Engaging the Community

For Harborplace to be authentically Baltimore, it is mission critical that all of Baltimore be authentically engaged. That means creating frequent, diverse, and meaningful ways for the community to engage. The design phase is anticipated to take roughly one year, and started when the sale of the property was completed. Since May of 2023, the Our Harborplace team has sought input on all facets of the project. Our approach to community engagement has been to create frequent, accessible, and meaningful opportunities to engage with the development team.

How Our Harborplace engaged across Baltimore

  • Public Forums

    The team conducted public forums with hundreds of residents at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, the Waxter Senior Center, and at Harborplace.

  • Dinners with the Developer

    The team hosted intimate community dinners where community members from all across the city had dinner with Dave Bramble, CEO of MCB Real Estate, to discuss the future of Harborplace. These small dinners give the development team the opportunity to have deep, meaningful conversations with Baltimoreans about their experience at Harborplace and in the City, and what the future of Harborplace means to them.

  • Web and Text based Outreach

    The team engaged thousands of residents through its web and text message based engagement tools. Through OurHarborplace.com, and by texting (708) R-HARBOR, residents submitted comments, ideas, suggestions, and hopes for the new Harborplace.

  • Community Canvassing

    The Our Harborplace Youthworks team canvassed broadly across Baltimore, going door-to-door with additional members of the team, to make community members aware of the community engagement process and to solicit input.

  • Neighborhood Association Engagement

    Community engagement started by inviting every single Neighborhood Association to a virtual meeting. Neighbhorhood Association engagement has continued throughout the process, with members of the team speaking at Community Meetings across the city.

  • Youth Engagement

    Over the summer, Our Harborplace hosted 4 Youthworks interns to help us engage community and to help us shape and implement a Youth Engagement Strategy. This team helped design and implement the Youth Engagement Strategy in addition to supporting citywide canvassing efforts.

Community Engagement Reports

Public Forum at Harborplace

On September 30, Our Harborplace hosted a public forum at Harborplace. In the Interim Report on Community Engagement, the Our Harborplace team shared initial understandings. The team sought to sharpen those understandings and have more specific conversations.

As part of its research and diligence process as it prepares for drafting, the design team looked at hundreds of different waterfronts and how different cities have interacted with their waterfronts. To facilitate deeper discussion, community members were shown images of some those waterfronts, presenting different cities’ interaction with and connection to waterfronts. Community members were asked “What do you notice?” and “What are your reactions?”, and then members of the design team facilitated table conversations. Input and images from those conversations follows.

Public Forum at the Waxter Senior Center

On August 4, 2023 Our Harborplace hosted a Senior-focused public forum at the Waxter Senior Center. Advertised through Baltimore City’s network of Senior Centers, dozens of Baltimore’s Seniors participated in the conversation.

Community members were asked the following questions:

  • When you visit the new Harborplace, what would you want to see to make you feel a sense of pride in the City of Baltimore?

  • What needs to happen to make it easy and accessible for you to come to enjoy Baltimore’s Inner Harbor?

  • Each of you has institutional knowledge and lived experience that no other group can offer. Based on what you have seen, what ideas do you believe would be perfect for Baltimore’s new Inner Harbor? What are we missing?

Notes were captured throughout the event by participants and facilitators and have been synthesized into the following key recommendations and thoughts:

Public Forum at the Reginald F. Lewis
of Maryland African American History & Culture

On June 3, 2023, Our Harborplace convened its first public forum at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture. 266 Baltimoreans registered for the event, representing over 59 different neighborhoods across the city.

Community members were asked the following questions:

  • What is one of your favorite memories from spending time in and around Harborplace in the past?

  • When you walk into the new Harborplace what might you see that would make you feel proud that this is your home city?

  • What might we want to highlight to tourists or visitors that helps them to see and celebrate the beauty of Baltimore?

  • We know this is a large area and needs to include a wide-range of uses (stores, restaurants, residences, outdoor space, gathering space, etc.), can you be specific about what types of recreation and gathering space might you want to see?

  • What needs to happen to make it easy and accessible for you to come enjoy Harborplace?

  • If you had a magic wand and could make one thing appear at Harborplace right now, what would you wish for?

What is one of your favorite memories from spending time in and around Harborplace in the past?

  • Theme of the Inner Harbor as a destination and somewhere special that you would go with friends and family.

  • Lots of memories of concerts, performances, and field trips (e.g. Light City, Sailibration, 4th of July)

  • People value a close connection to the water

What might we want to highlight to tourists or visitors that helps them to see and celebrate the beauty of Baltimore?

  • Lots of overlap with previous question

  • Places to sell art

  • Spaces for learning

  • Large, illuminated structure

  • Rotating events, festivals, reasons to come together

  • Use Harborplace reflect the whole city and to serve as an introduction to the rest of Baltimore

  • Make the water viewable from the road and allow the space to highlight the natural features, rather than just the walls of businesses

  • Clean Harbor water, natural & protected wetland areas

If you had a magic wand and could make one thing appear at Harborplace right now, what would you wish for?

  • Make it swimmable and build a beach for everyone to enjoy the water

  • Highline

  • VR experiences

  • Vertical gardens and green spaces

  • Grocery store

  • Amphitheater and performance spaces

  • A large crab that lights like the domino sugar sign only a building structure like the Eiffel Tower that you can go up and see the whole city.

  • Underwater restaurant surrounded by an aquarium with an underwater tube that connects to the National Aquarium.

  • Pedestrian bridge from Federal Hill to Locust Point

When you walk into the new Harborplace what might you see that would make you feel proud that this is your home city?

  • A place that feels safe, friendly and welcoming to all generations and families

  • “blue collar Baltimore crab house vibe” (e.g. Nick’s at the old Cross St. Market)

  • Renewable energy, solar panels, caring for the environment

  • Documenting and celebrating the history of Baltimore and of the Harbor in particular

  • Unique art piece or monument

  • Local restaurants, pop ups, local vendors

  • Formal and informal performances (busking, street performers)

  • Embrace and enhance the water

  • Highlighting all neighborhoods of Baltimore, and not just appealing to the “white L”

We know this is a large area and needs to include a wide-range of uses (stores, restaurants, residences, outdoor space, gathering space, etc.), can you be specific about what types of recreation and gathering space might you want to see?

  • Outdoor bars and places to watch the O’s and Ravens

  • Most groups spoke about affordable options for food and recreation

  • Many want live performances and events

  • Ways to be close to and on the water (e.g. love the walking bridge over by the Aquarium)

What needs to happen to make it easy and accessible for you to come enjoy Harborplace?

  • Primary economic benefit to the black butterfly

  • Almost 100% of people mentioned affordable parking, easy public transit, and shuttle buses

  • Needs to “feel safe”

  • Remove walls along Light and Pratt to create open views from the street. Reduce street size and traffic to make it easier to cross.

Dinners with the Developer

Dinners with the Developer were a series of small dinners that gave the development team the opportunity to have deep, meaningful conversations with Baltimoreans about their experience at Harborplace and in the City, and what the future of Harborplace means to them. This series of small dinners has included residents from dozens of neighborhoods, including Forest Park, Otterbein, Upton, Coldspring Newtown, Carroll, Downtown, and so many others. At these conversations, community members raised important ideas, asked questions, and gave valuable insight. Key themes emerged:

  • Reimagining Harborplace the right way requires:

    • Highlighting local. Entrepreneurs, restaurateurs, artists, and makers.

    • Integration of more green space.

    • Crabs!

    • Premier event space

    • All kinds of big and small events: AfrAm and Artscape and Light City and farmers markets

    • Premier dining. Where do the Ravens have dinner after a game?

    • Residential and density. “We need a proper tall residential building. 65+ stories.”

    • Native and resilient landscaping.

  • Safety is important, but it will come from getting buy-in from all the stakeholders and building the base of stakeholders. More of a draw to Harborplace means more business, more residents, more foot traffic. More stakeholders brings more safety.

  • How do we rethink transportation? Community members continued to express that the redeveloped Harborplace needs to be more pedestrian friendly; that crossing Light and Pratt is dangerous and many are scared to cross the street to the harbor. How can we reduce car traffic while at the same time ensuring reasonably-priced access to nearby parking?

  • If there is synergy and connectivity between Harborplace, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, M&T Bank Stadium, CFG Bank Arena, and that 8-mile public park is connected, it’s transformative.

  • Safety will come from activity. If Harborplace is full of businesses and customers and residents, that foot traffic will enhance safety and the feeling of safety.

  • So many people feel that Harborplace was historically not for them. To change that, MCB should continue community engagement, and should ensure that there is entertainment at all price points (including free experiences), ensure that there is ample opportunity for Black-owned businesses, and support small business owners.

  • Music and Art are important. Baltimore has a rich musical history and incorporating a Jazz venue or a Blues Alley and local art will go a long way in making Harborplace for everyone.

  • What other cool attractions can be incorporated? “Ferris wheels are played out”, but what else could we do? Dining on boats or gondola rides or Harbor boat excursions could be interesting. The Harbor has water as its centerpiece; what can be done to bring the water to people and people to the water?

  • “There’s a hole here at Harborplace”; “It feels unsafe just because it’s so desolate”

  • Activation requires all types of authentically Baltimore experiences, including free experiences.

  • Bring back the buskers. People miss them and they should be brought back, and we have to get the word out on what’s happening already.

  • It has to be a place that people want to experience. It has to be authentic. We have to avoid the “Hard-Rockification”

  • It can’t be Towson Town Center, someplace where you can’t even tell where you are. It needs to embrace the connection to the water and it needs to embrace Pratt and Light. You should know where you are and see the water as you’re approaching it

  • Would love to see a farmers or makers market with local goods.

  • Light City was a great type of use.

  • Youth downtown need something to do, something for them.

  • Can we have space for a unique arts experience or exhibits, like those that tour nationally? It creates a center of Arts and Culture

  • “My family is foodies. They don’t ask to come to the harbor, they ask to come to Lexington market.”

  • There’s so much history in this city and in this space; how do you tell that story through markers, activations, and design?

  • “It’s romantic here but there’s nothing to do. I want a rooftop bar.”

  • It has to be accessible and be inclusive of seniors. What can be built for seniors? And the accessibility issues are so frustrating.

For a complete picture of our Community Engagement efforts, read our latest report.