Once slated for condos, city site is headed for 'hotel row'
From The Baltimore Business Journal
by Daniel J. Sernovitz
November 10, 2006
A Baltimore developer has set his sights on a $32 million hotel to complement a five-story historic warehouse building at 15 S. Charles Street in downtown Baltimore.
Ashbourne Developments LLC initially planned to build apartments at the property, then condominiums. About six months ago, Ashbourne again shifted focus in favor of a nine-story, 180-room hotel.
"Primarily, the markets influenced our decision toward hospitality," said Crispin Etherington, president of Ashbourne. "It's really a function of the market."
Ashbourne, which has partnered with Star Hotels on the project, could expand its plans to as many as 11 floors and 200 rooms, depending on the specific hotel chosen for the site. Regardless, Etherington said: "It will be a first-class hotel, it won't be a bottom-of-the-line" hotel.
The developer previously received approval from the city's Urban Design and Architecture Review Panel to build an 84-unit condominium building at the site, but Etherington said the real estate market in Baltimore forced him to consider alternatives, which led to the idea for a hotel on Charles Street near Redwood Street.
That area of the city is quickly becoming what Downtown Partnership Economic Development Director Bob Aydukovic termed "hotel row." It also includes a Marriott Residence Inn at Light and Redwood streets, a Hampton Inn & Suites Inner Harbor at Redwood and Grant streets, and a Springhill Suites at Calvert and Redwood streets.
"I believe that a hotel in the community fits very well, it's a very nice area," Aydukovic said. "It brings a lot of life to the center of downtown that really doesn't exist" after businesses close.
Ashbourne is planning to demolish two buildings at 17 and 19 Charles Street in order to build the new hotel on their footprint next to 15 S. Charles Street, which was built as a warehouse in the early 1900s. Etherington said he felt it was important not only to preserve the building but also to design the hotel to accent it.
Walter Schamu, principal with Schamu Machowski Greco Architects in Baltimore, said the hotel will be pushed back further from the street than 15 S. Charles Street, and will be built of a less aesthetically significant material "to really showcase the corner building."
"Although not a grand building, it's certainly a handsome building," Schamu said of 15 S. Charles Street. He noted 17 and 19 S. Charles were built in the early 1960s of steel and glass, less visually appealing but made "to withstand a nuclear attack."
In addition to pushing the hotel back further from the street, Schamu said he is leaning toward "a lighter, more crisp steel and glass building" for contrast.
Etherington said there could also be some retail space on the ground floor of the hotel for a restaurant and possibly a couple of stores. Etherington said he hopes to present the new concept to the urban design panel during the first quarter of next year.
Construction could start in third quarter 2007 and could be finished by early 2009.
