In the News...Developer presents designs for Stadium Square apartments

By: Natalie Sherman

The developer of a new six-story apartment building in Sharp-Leadenhall hopes to break ground this year on the project, planned to be the first part of a larger redevelopment of the area.

Texas-based Hanover Co. presented designs to the city Wednesday for a 293-unit apartment complex with a clubhouse and interior courtyard springing up from a square block between Cross, Race, Leadenhall and West streets.  Plans by Design Collective call for about 500 parking spaces inside a garage and 14,200 square feet of retail on the ground floor.

It would be the first new building erected on parcels assembled last year by Towson firm Caves Valley Partners, which said it hoped to create a $250 million mixed use redevelopment in the area, dubbed Stadium Square. The firm, also part of the team seeking to take over the management of Cross Street Market, is also working on plans for an office building, said partner Arsh Mirmiran.

Hanover Co., which built the Crescent in Fells Point and Hanover Brewers Hill apartments, currently has the site under contract from Caves Valley, which retains control of several rowhomes on the Hanover Co. block. The rowhomes, under contract from the owner by Caves Valley, fall in a local historic district, where changes are subject to strict city review.

For the city’s urban design and architecture review panel,  the rowhomes presented the most significant sticking point in the apartment complex plans, which show a six-story parking garage massing above them.  

“We have to really solve that problem now,” said panel member Gary Bowden. “You’ve done so much work to hide the garage and yet the one place where it can serve as a backdrop to historical townhouses it looks like a garage.”

Residents at the meeting also raised questions about whether the height of the new building would reduce light for existing homes.

Mirmiran said Caves Valley wants to locate additional retail on that part of the site and perhaps add height to the rowhomes, creating a shopping corridor that extends west from market to the Solo Gibbs park.  

Hanover Co. partner Adam Harbin declined to comment beyond his public remarks or say the estimated cost of the project. The building could open by the end of 2017.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/real-estate/wonk/bal-developer-presents-designs-for-stadium-square-apartments-20150311-story.html