Hotel, Apartments Planned for New East Pratt Tower
Developers are scheduled to present designs to the city next week for a major mixed use development with a hotel and apartment on a prime Pratt Street parking lot across from Harborplace — one of the last undeveloped parcels close to the water.
The proposal from Comstock Partners, based in Reston, Va., and Chicago-based InterPark Holdings calls for a 200-room hotel, about 400 apartment units, retail space and about 500 parking spaces, said Kimberly A. Clark, executive vice president of the Baltimore Development Corp.
The 300 E. Pratt Street structure is expected to exceed 200 feet, she said, without specifying because the plans were not in front of her.
The developer will release the plans Thursday at a meeting of the city’s Urban Design & Architecture Review Panel.
It will be the second major new project for an Inner Harbor parcel to be announced this year. Plans for a skyscraper of luxury apartments at 414 Light Street were announced this spring.
“I think it’s a viable project and I think the timing’s right,” Clark said. “Baltimore is — I really don’t like to say it’s on the launching pad, but it’s taking off. It’s crazy. It’s really becoming a place to be.”
Once the home of the old News American newspaper, the narrow, roughly one-acre parcel between Commerce and South streets has been a parking lot since it was cleared in 1990.
InterPark, a parking operator and developer, purchased the roughly one-acre parcel for $16.4 million last year, saying it hoped to find a development partner and see a new tower rise in four to six years. A flyer the firm circulated last year said the plot can support about 600,000-square feet of developemnt.
A Comstock spokeswoman declined to comment Friday, saying the firm planned to wait until next week’s presentation. The firm specializes in mixed use, transit oriented development, according to its website, with projects that include developments close to stops on the Washington region’s new Silver Line.
“We’re excited to be up there next Thursday and we’ve got a really great use for that beautiful parcel,” spokeswoman Maggie Parker said.
