South Baltimore’s Reaction to the Sale of Port Covington

The pure mention of Port Covington makes traffic soar at SouthBMore.com, and the ailing shopping center at the tip of the South Peninsula received some potentially huge news last week as a secret buyer emerged at a purchase price of $35 million.  An adjacent parcel was also sold in 2012, which has seen remediation work in recent weeks, though it is not known if the purchase of the two properties is related.

We have reached out to many insiders in Baltimore and in real estate and the sale remains a mystery to all.  Several are curious if Under Armour is behind the purchase.  The apparel company once eyed a move to West Covington, and have visions of a corporate campus with athletic facilities that will be hard to achieve at Tide Point.  $35 million is a lot of money to spend on land when you already own a headquarters zoned for 400,000 sq. ft. of growth, but it could certainly be a one-of-a-kind corporate campus with I-95 visibility ideal for recruiting athletes and employees.

Who is behind the purchase and what we might see is all speculation at this point, but we posted a poll on our site last week to get a feel for what South Baltimoreans would like to see at Port Covington and conversations ensued on our site, on Facebook and in our email box.

The question was, “What would you like to see happen at Port Covington?” The choices were:

• Finish the shopping center
• A more upscale shopping center
• Mixed use with shopping, offices and residential
• A large residential community with light retail
• Port industries
• An entertainment destination
• A corporate headquarters

The desire for better shopping options in the area was very evident from the poll results.  In a dead heat, ‘Mixed use with shopping, office and residential’ edged out ‘A more upscale shopping center’ by one vote, with the two combining for 64% of the votes.  Next was ‘An entertainment destination’ at 11% and the rest all fell below 10%. ‘A corporate headquarters’ received the least amount of votes at 5%, and ‘Finish the current shopping center’ was next to last with just 7% of the vote.

Readers expressed an interest for stores like Trader Joe’s, Fresh Market, Wegman’s, Kohl’s, Target, a movie theater and numerous mentions of Home Depot.  There were also many mentions of utilizing the waterfront as park space, building new athletic fields, and several mentions of space for a new soccer stadium for the DC United or a minor league team.  There was also mention of a new High School for the area, and a lot of responses expressed the desire to see a combination of many things, as evident with ‘Mixed Use’ winning in our poll.

We are not sure what will happen at Port Covington, but it is clear that there are no lack of good ideas for such a unique urban property, and locals are not satisfied with its current state.

About the Author: Kevin Lynch

Founder and Publisher of SouthBmore.com, longtime resident of South Baltimore, and a graduate of Towson University. Diehard Ravens and O's fan, father of three, amateur pizza chef, skateboarder, and "bar food" foodie. Email me at Kevin@InceptMM.com and follow me on Twitter at @SoBoKevin.