Former brewery site could become hotel
From The Baltimore Business Journal
January 12, 2007
by Daniel J. Sernovitz
The former Baltimore Brewing Co. has enticed yet another developer less than six months after the last attempt to redevelop the Little Italy site failed to pass muster from Baltimore City's historic preservation board and nearby residents. Summit Associates LLC, of Raleigh, N.C., has submitted a plan to the city's Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation to build a hotel at the former brewery that faces Albemarle Street on the edge of the Jonestown historic district.
Gene Singleton, of Summit Associates, said he is hoping to work closely with residents on the project to overcome the problems Greenbelt developer Bozzuto Homes Inc. faced in trying to redevelop the site last year. The company has hired Baltimore-based SMG Architects to design plans for the hotel.
"We're trying to get all the people who had concerns before to voice their concerns," said Walter Schamu, of SMG Architects. "I hope this time it's a little more positive." The historical commission is scheduled to consider a concept plan for the property at its Jan. 16 meeting.
Schamu said the hotel would vary in height from as low as two-and-a-half stories along Lombard Street to four stories along President Street before rising to a height of six stories in the center and then dropping down again to four stories facing Granby and Albemarle streets.
Schamu said there will not be any parking at the hotel, which is slated to have between 160 and 170 rooms, and the concession helped Singleton to keep the building's total height down.
The brick-faced building would be designed to match the surrounding architecture and would also include a main courtyard. The historic structures at the site would also be preserved, Schamu said, and could be used as a conference room or fitness area. Schamu said he believes the design will keep the building from looking like a "cookie-cutter" hotel while fitting in with the surrounding neighborhood at the same time. The brewing company, which was founded by Theo de Groen in 1989, stopped brewing and closed down two years ago. De Groen, who still owns the property, now lives in Germany. Singleton said de Groen contacted him about developing the property and is scheduled to attend the Jan. 16 concept review hearing to support the plan.
The building sits at the foot of the historical district and has been a problematic site to redevelop. Bozzuto had an agreement with de Groen to buy the property in order to build a townhouse project, but the city's historical commission declined to endorse the plan because it did not include the preservation of three historic buildings on the property. Two of the buildings, at 102 and 104 Albemarle St., were built in 1796, and a third, at 837 E. Lombard St., was built in 1792.
Bozzuto then developed new plans for a seven-story apartment building, which would have included preserving the historic structures. But neighborhood groups and the historical commission felt the building would have been too big and would have been out of character with the rest of Jonestown's architecture of three- to four-story buildings.
Richard T. Lawrence, chair of the Jonestown Planning Council and pastor at St. Vincent de Paul Church on Front Street, said he did not mind Bozzuto's first plan for shorter townhouse buildings but felt the seven-story apartment building would have been out of character with the surrounding neighborhood.
He noted Singleton came in initially with plans for a six-story building, but agreed to modify the height of the hotel to meet that of surrounding buildings.
As the hotel is now proposed, Singleton said: "I do not see it as changing the visual architecture of the neighborhood."
