Watching Westport Waterfront Grow
If you’ve seen the Westport Waterfront site from the water lately (and I do most Tuesday and Thursday evenings from the seat of a crew boat), you’ll notice some changes including thousands of green sprouts of newly planted grasses.
On June 7th, I joined thirty-five fifth and sixth graders from Westport Academy as they learned more about the environment. As part of a month-long project, the National Aquarium led several hundred Baltimore-area school children who planted more than 16,000 smooth cordgrass plugs in the newly reconstructed tidal wetlands along the edge of the Middle Branch basin. Students also released striped bass (also known as rockfish if you’re from Baltimore) that they had grown in their classrooms throughout the year. The National Aquarium will bring the students back to help maintain the wetland as it grows over the next year.
Fox 45, WBAL and WJZ were on site to capture the students in action.
The wetland reconstruction is part of a public/private partnership to restore the ecology of the Middle Branch, which is home to abundant populations of fish, birds and other wildlife, but has suffered from degradation due to decades of industrial activity. Wetland restoration in the Middle Branch is a key priority of Baltimore City as it focuses on redeveloping the Middle Branch watershed as Baltimore’s “green harbor.” The abandoned industrial buildings that we used as sight points to guide our boats are gone. In their place, a sustainable neighborhood is being built. The Westport Waterfront wetlands are the first phase of what will be an exciting project to watch.
photos by Wink Hastings, C-Kat Studios 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010, 2:41pm EDT | Modified: Tuesday, May 11, 2010, 9:10am
Aquarium plots $5.4M park project in Westport
Baltimore Business Journal - by Daniel J. Sernovitz Staff
Read more: Aquarium plots $5.4M park project in Westport - Baltimore Business Journal:
The National Aquarium in Baltimore plans to build a $5.4 million waterfront park in Westport, where it hopes eventually to shift its Animal Rescue Program from Fells Point under a larger redevelopment plan.
Officials at the Aquarium unveiled their plans Monday for the 12.5-acre site along the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River, a project which has been in the works for about a decade.
The property is across the Middle Branch from developer Patrick Turner’s $1.2 billion Westport project in South Baltimore before the Hanover Street bridge if traveling from downtown. The nonprofit hopes to open the park, to include walking and biking trails, early next year.
Those plans are part of a larger, $50 million redevelopment slated to include classroom space, room for public demonstrations and a newer facility for its animal rescue efforts. The economic downturn forced the Aquarium to suspend fundraising for that portion of the project last year.
The nonprofit has spent the past year cleaning up contamination 101 W. Dickman St. and readying it for its proposed Center for Aquatic Life and Conservation Inc.
As part of that cleanup, Baltimore contractor Potts & Calahan Inc. removed about 7,500 tons of contaminated soil, put there as debris from construction and demolition projects in the region.
Read more: Aquarium plots $5.4M park project in Westport - Baltimore Business Journal:
Friday, February 5, 2010
Barton-Cotton’s comeback continues
Baltimore Business Journal - by Ryan Sharrow Staff
Barton-Cotton is making the most of its second life.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Aquarium enlists former Struever Bros. exec for Middle Branch cleanup
Baltimore Business Journal - by Daniel J. Sernovitz Staff
The National Aquarium in Baltimore has tapped a former executive at Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse Inc. to help it convert a swath of waterfront along the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River into a community park.
Tim Pula, former senior development director for prolific Baltimore developer Struever Bros., has been named senior director of capital planning at the aquarium.
Pula, who worked on Struever Bros. projects including the Olmstead condos in Charles Village — never developed after the real estate market tanked — and a planned waterfront development near the Port Covington shopping center in South Baltimore. He started working for the National Aquarium about two months ago. He replaces Kim McCalla, now assistant vice president for design and construction management at Morgan State University.
Among Pula’s duties will be to help the aquarium clean up a 12.5-acre site overlooking the Middle Branch and turn it into a public park. The site, once part of the Patapsco, was created over time as a landfill and dumping ground for construction debris.
On Friday, the aquarium announced it is seeking contractors to undertake that work. The project includes installing a layer of soil as deep as 36 inches over most of the property to contain underground contaminants such as arsenic, lead and mercury, Pula said in a telephone interview. The Aquarium hopes to select a contractor in time to start site work in late October. The cleanup could be finished by March 2010.
“Remediation is the first stage of fulfilling our commitment to reclaiming this part of Baltimore City, and we look forward to restoring this waterfront and making this an asset for the community,” National Aquarium spokeswoman Molly Foyle said in an e-mail.
Once that cleanup is completed, the aquarium hopes to start work in summer 2010 to convert the land into a public park including walking paths, trees and other public amenities. The nonprofit has raised the funds it needs to undertake both phases of work, including a $200,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, but officials declined to say how much it will cost for fear of influencing the bidding process.
The National Aquarium has been planning the project since 2004. In February 2007, it bought what was then a 20-acre property from the city for its Center for Aquatic Life and Conservation. In addition to cleaning up the land and converting it into a park, the aquarium hoped to build classroom space, additional room for public demonstrations, and to relocate its Animal Rescue Program from its present site on Wolfe Street in Fells Point.
But the aquarium, like many nonprofits, was hampered in its efforts to raise funds for that development. In August 2007, the aquarium sold a 6.5-acre piece of the property to developer Patrick Turner for $1.5 million. In spring 2009, it suspended plans and fundraising efforts to relocate the Animal Rescue Program from Fells Point.
Aquarium spokeswoman Denise Aranoff-Brown said its lease in Fells Point extends until 2013. In a telephone interview, Aranoff-Brown said the nonprofit has not made any decisions yet about whether it will seek to relocate the Animal Rescue Program to the Middle Branch site in the future or whether it will use the land for other purposes.
CB Richard Ellis Inc.’s Baltimore office has cast a nationwide net to sell off parts of Westport, the $1.4 billion waterfront development planned by Baltimore developer Patrick Turner.
The brokerage is listing four residential parcels for sale, combining for nearly 650,000 square feet, as well as an unspecified amount of land for an office tower.
CB Richard Ellis’ effort comes as Pulte Homes Corp. waived development rights to build homes there.
Westport is being marketed to developers in a package of 93 properties across the U.S. representing $10 billion in investment, said John Wilhide, a broker with CB Richard Ellis in Baltimore. Wilhide said bids are due in September, and he has received interest from a number of Greater Baltimore companies familiar with the project.
