In the 1970’s Baltimore’s Inner Harbor was a wasteland. It was abandoned and surrounded by urban blight. No one went there. No one would think of going there.
Mayor William Donald Schaeffer changed all that. He cleaned up the harbor. He sold off vacant homes at bargain prices on the condition that those who bought them moved in and rehabilitated them. Harborplace, an anchor shopping destination, was built right on the water on his watch. The Inner Harbor became a tourist mecca, and the whole downtown blossomed as a result.
Not anymore.
Baltimore mayors since Schaeffer have been largely crooks and charlatans. When they are not stealing from the public they are peddling standard Democratic Party “victimology” and preaching the defunding of the police. The city is sliding out of control. Gangs of young people terrorize the streets.
The business community has taken note. It is packing up and leaving.
A few months ago the Baltimore Brew, a local investigative paper, ran an article on Harborplace which is now largely abandoned. As of that time, the two pavilions that make up the complex were 90% vacant. One of the pavilions was completely locked up. The only businesses still in operation in Harborplace were a Hooter’s restaurant, the Cheesecake Factory, and a t-shirt store. The developer running Harborplace said it was working on a plan for “pop-up” rentals.
Now commercial real estate prices are collapsing in the downtown area near the harbor. Earlier this summer an office tower at One South Street in downtown Baltimore sold for $24 million, a 63.6% discount versus the tower's 2015 sale of $66 million. The building is thirty stories tall and has 479,000 square feet.
"Occupancy drives value and many buildings downtown are struggling to maintain that occupancy," said Terri Harrington, a commercial real estate broker at the time. Harrington warned that the sale could be the start of a wave of firesales across the downtown area.
"I also believe you are going to see other buildings in the same boat."
That firesale may now have begun. Another office building, this one at 1 E. Pratt St. just sold for $55.1 million less than it last traded for. The building last sold for $80.1 million. The most recent price was $25 million.
Roughly twenty percent of the office space in Baltimore is already vacant.
On Howard Street – once the heart of the downtown business district – the stores are vacant and the windows are covered in graffiti. Building doors are padlocked. The Morris A. Mechanic Theater, once a symbol of downtown urban renewal, is now a vacant lot. The Gallery Mall, built across the street from Harborplace is closed. The jewelry maker Pandora is moving its North American headquarters out of Baltimore to New York City.
Investors once looked to turn vacant office towers into luxury apartments. That idea died when it turned out nobody wanted to live in a war zone.
A recent Baltimore Banner data analysis found that crime downtown in Baltimore had exploded. Between 2015 and 2022, the violent crime rate downtown far outpaced the citywide rate. In 2022, the number of violent crimes per 1,000 people in downtown Baltimore was six times higher than the citywide rate. Shooting and homicide rates match those in the historically most violent police districts, and downtown Baltimore suffers from some of the highest rates of robbery in the city.
The underlying premise of all disastrous Democratic policies is that money appears out of thin year and is endless. It doesn’t matter what you do or how shortsighted you are. There will always be people and businesses to tax, and there will never be any real consequences to your actions.
You can coddle criminals. You can oppress law-abiding citizens. People may grumble, but nothing will really change. In the end, the tax money will roll in, salaries will be paid, budgets will be funded and the merry-go-round will keep spinning.
All that is nonsense, of course, something Baltimore is now finding out the hard way. The people and businesses that pay the taxes and keep the city afloat are leaving. Building values are collapsing. The streets are vacant. Only those who prey on the defenseless and those too poor to have the means to flee will soon be left.
Baltimore has been bleeding for a long time. It is dying now. Someone remember to turn the lights off when this great American city is finally empty.
Coast to coast we see this. I have no explanation other than this is a spiritual overtaking of mans heart. Call me simplistic but as I see it if a person isn't filled with the Holy Spirit they will be filled with the deception of the devil. And destruction is all the devil desires.
To add to what Mr. Kline commented ...
Catherine Austin Fitts (Solari Report) has long opined that part of the plandemic - Great Reset plan is to decimate urban real estate prices (largely through deliberate fostering of crime), setting the stage for the elite to swoop in later to purchase at the real estate at bargain-basement prices.
I used to pooh-pooh this premise. But now I'm not so sure. Consider:
a) The Globalist-CCP Axis very much intends to herd us all plebeians / neo-serfs into "15 minute cities." You know, where by 2030 we'll own nothing and be happy. So someone will own the real estate, now won't they.
b) In recent years BlackRock has been buying up large swaths of residential real estate. (Meanwhile, Bill Gates has been buying up lot's of farmland, but that's another discussion.) There are several possible explanations - but one may be that single family homes may be targeted to become a luxury item. BlackRock could raise rental rates or sales prices to exorbitant levels in order to "choice architecture" / "nudge" the plebes into the newly constructed, "affordable" multifamily units in those "15 minute cities." Also owned by BlackRock et als.