Major B’More High-Rise Breaks Ground

By Gail Kalinoski

Baltimore—Construction has begun on One Light Street, a 780,941-square-foot mixed-use project in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor neighborhood that is just one of several developments in the city’s CBD expected to be completed within the next two years.

One Light Street

Donohoe Construction Co. of Bethesda, Md., is the general contractor on One Light Street, a 28-story glass tower that will be a prominent addition to the Baltimore skyline. The project, several years in planning, is being developed by Madison Marquette, a Washington, D.C.-based developer and operator of mixed-use real estate, and Reston, Va.-based developer and adaptive-reuse specialist Metropolitan Partnership. Metropolitan is also the owner and developer of nearby 10 Light St., a 34-story apartment building that opened last year after the firm redeveloped the historic Bank of America building.

One Light Street is expected to be completed by December 2018. The building will feature nine floors of Class A office space, 10 floors of luxury apartments with 280 units, ground-floor retail and a parking garage with 646 spaces. Amenities will include a fitness center and rooftop pool and lounge.

Madison Marquette said on its website that 66 percent of the office space is preleased. M&T Bank was reportedly interested in leasing space at the building as the anchor tenant but has not confirmed if it is moving offices there. However, a rendering on architect AECOM’s website has the M&T logo atop the glass tower.

The parking garage will have seven levels of above-ground parking and two that are below grade. In July 2014, the Baltimore Development Corp. approved the use of $28 million in parking revenue bonds for the construction of the garage that would also serve residents of 10 Light St., the Baltimore Sun reported.

One Light Street will be one of several projects in the city to deliver new office product within the next two years in a development pipeline described as “robust” by JLL in its Office Insight Baltimore|Q4 2016 report. JLL noted that new deliveries topped one million square feet in 2016 for the first time and at the quickest rate since 2012.

In its Multifamily Spring Report 2016 released in May, Yardi Matrix stated, “Baltimore’s multifamily market has lagged national growth in recent years, but positive signs are providing hope.” The report noted demand has increased as employment in the region has grown. Yardi Matrix pointed to the “emergence of downtown Baltimore” as a “24/7 city where Millennials and Generation X households want to live” and developers have been ramping up construction to meet the demand.

One Light Street isn’t the only mixed-use development planned for the Inner Harbor area. In November, ground was broken for Liberty Harbor East, which will have 317 residential units and a Whole Foods Market store when it is completed in early 2019.

Questar Properties is building 414 Light St., a 44-story tower with 394 luxury units and almost 21,000 square feet of retail space expected to deliver by March 2018. NGKF was appointed the exclusive leasing agent for the retail space in October.

The Baltimore City Council approved a $660 million public financing package in September that will help the planned $5.5 billion mixed-use Port Covington waterfront development move forward. Sagamore Development is transforming an industrial peninsula in the Patapsco River into 15 million square feet of commercial space that will include a new headquarters for the Under Armour sports apparel company. Considered one of the biggest urban renewal projects in the United States, the development will also include offices, homes, stores, restaurants and about 40 acres of open space and parks and take more than two decades to build out.