With MCB Real Estate charging ahead with its plan to transform Baltimore’s tourist waterfront into an enclave of high-rise luxury housing, an upscale hotel, an office building and a curvaceous retail structure, opponents are asking a judge to press “pause.”

Seven city residents paint a very different picture of what Harborplace could look like if MCB is allowed to proceed in a request for a preliminary injunction they filed this week in Baltimore Circuit Court.

“A wasteland of half-demolished structures, abandoned pits, and indefinitely vacant and unbuilt lots,” is how the opponents predict the area around Pratt and Light streets would look should MCB raze the two existing low-rise pavilions without being able to complete its private redevelopment, now estimated to cost $820 million.

The memo articulates the long-held view of critics that Mayor Brandon Scott, with the active support of Maryland Governor Wes Moore and other leading politicians, is backing a speculative venture that could cause irreparable damage to the heart of the city.

The criticism has become more acute since it was revealed that the city’s economic development arm is proposing a 95% property tax break on the project for 25 years, potentially saving MCB $200 million or more in future property taxes.

The 50-page memo in support of an injunction, filed on behalf of the Inner Harbor Coalition, argues that “if all funding is not fully secured in advance of demolition and redevelopment, there is a serious risk that the Inner Harbor will sit vacant for an extended period of time or indefinitely.”

The memo sounds a note of urgency, pointing out that although MCB principal P. David Bramble has publicly stated he will not begin the project until all private funding is in place – the developer also originally said his company would not seek city or state tax breaks – MCB  has submitted multiple permit applications for site work, promenade reconstruction and building in a tidal wetlands.

The motion, part of the coalition’s lawsuit filed in September against Mayor Brandon Scott, the City Council and MCB, asks the court to prohibit any demolition, construction or redevelopment on publicly owned land until the lawsuit can be heard on its merits.

“Special laws are inherently undemocratic. . . There is overwhelming evidence that the Inner Harbor bills were intended solely to benefit MCB”  – Inner Harbor Coalition memorandum.

The complaint accuses the Scott administration and the council of violating the Zoning Code, Baltimore City Charter and a provision of the Maryland Constitution that prohibits “special laws” for the benefit of particular persons or individual cases.

MCB, they argue, was the sole beneficiary of three council bills in 2024 that made sweeping changes to public parkland by removing 50-foot height limits, adding housing and parking as permitted land uses and handing MCB control of more city-owned property.

“Special laws are inherently undemocratic. They discriminate against the powerless and under-represented … There is overwhelming, if not undisputed, evidence that the MCB Inner Harbor bills were intended solely to benefit MCB,” the memo, filed by the coalition’s attorney, Michael McCann, asserts.

• The Brew’s detailed coverage of the Harborplace controversy

The plaintiffs are former 2nd District City Councilman Anthony Ambridge, economist Anirban Basu, attorney Eleanor M. Carey, developer and former mayoral candidate David Tufaro, architect David Benn, and Barbara Valeri and Bill Pencek, chair of the Inner Harbor Coalition.

Separately, Tufaro has filed an application with the Maryland Historical Trust to place the 46-year-old Rouse Company-built Harborplace pavilions on a list of historical landmarks and save them from destruction.

MCB and City Respond

MCB quickly pooh-poohed the coalition’s latest filing in a public statement, dismissing the coalition, a three-year-old nonprofit, as “unilaterally focused on obstruction.”

“It seems we are perpetually in Ground Hog Day with the plaintiffs,” Alexandra M. Hughes, spokeswoman for MCB, wrote.

(The company has 15 days to formally respond to the Coalition’s preliminary injunction request.)

Hughes struck a similar tone in a statement on the project’s “Our Harborplace” website when the original lawsuit was filed in September.

“The latest action by a small group of opponents proves one thing beyond a shadow of a doubt: nostalgia for a few is more important than progress for all,” she wrote.

Hughes pointed to voters’ 2024 approval of a charter change needed to allow multi-family housing at the harbor. (Boosted by a more than $400,000 promotional campaign by MCB, Question F passed by a 60%-40% margin.)

In a motion earlier this month asking the judge to dismiss the residents’ lawsuit, City Solicitor Ebony Thompson argued that the city did not give MCB any special treatment during the planning and development process, and that the plaintiffs do not have standing to bring the lawsuit.

“These laws, while important for expanding the potential of the area, were not passed for the exclusive benefit of a particular private developer and do not require any specific development,” her memorandum asserts. Instead, “they are intended as a neutral platform to spur growth and revitalization.”

Approved by the council and signed by Mayor Scott, the bills “were the product of significant analysis, debate and consideration, both by the legislature and the public,” Thompson wrote.

Mayor Alludes to Race

On Thursday, Scott gave his own defense of Bramble’s project on the “C4 and Bryan Nehman Show” on WBAL NewsRadio, repeating his previous suggestion that there is a racial dimension to the criticism:

You cannot have a thriving downtown without a thriving Harborplace, and that includes making sure it’s successful so that those Baltimoreans who work at the Hyatt actually have jobs to be able to provide for their families and, hopefully, even more folks that are able to work there.

I will say this, too: I don’t remember a lot of folks complaining about [tax] deals when it was on the other side of the harbor. I will say to you and C4 what I’ve said many many times. . . Why is it that when Dave Bramble, someone who happens to look like me and C4, now we should have a discussion about why they should be able to do it?