60,000 Sq. Ft. Office Building on Woodall Street in Locust Point Moves Forward with Community Approval

Goodier Properties announced plans last week to move forward with a 60,000 sq. ft., nine-story office building at 1401 Woodall St. in Locust Point. The project takes the place of a lot at 1401-1407 Woodall St. that was recently the home of two now-demolished, less-than-two-story industrial buildings and a vacant lot. The site faces E. Key Hwy., Woodall St., and Stevenson St.

This Goodier Properties’ project was protested and heavily debated by the Locust Point Civic Association (LPCA) and Key Hwy. neighbor Domino Sugar (parent company is ASR Group) for more than a year-and-half, but the three groups reached a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in recent months allowing Baltimore City Council to rezone the property to the TOD-3 zoning classification needed to accommodate the new building height, massing, and use.

Woodall and Stevenson St. are both one-way streets comprised of mostly two-story rowhomes. In an initial design from Goodier Properties, the project was a five-story office building with a four-story section adjacent to the two-story rowhomes. Goodier Properties was approved last September by BMZA to construct a new nine-story, mixed-use structure with 28 dwelling units; office and retail space at 1401-1407 Woodall St.; and a five-story parking garage on the adjoining lot, but Goodier decided to go in a different direction for the project site. Both plans were protested by LPCA and Domino Sugar.

In the new design, which was agreed upon in the MOU and approved by BMZA, part of the office building adjacent to Key Hwy. is nine stories, however the part of the building adjacent to the rowhomes on the southern end of the property is a similar in height to the rowhomes. The 42-car parking garage will be entered on Stevenson St. and exited on Woodall St. As part of the MOU, area residents will have access to parking in the garage during non-business hours.

Also in the MOU is liability for area residents in case of damages to adjacent properties during construction and an agreement to continue community engagement during the project.

Goodier Properties will provide an additional 65 parking spaces at a nearby satellite parking lot.

“We are happy to negotiate a deal and have this wrapped up,” said LPCA President Matt Farcosky. “We made an agreement by getting to a place where the residents and developers are happy with an acceptable middle ground.”

He noted that LPCA, ASR Group, and Councilman Eric Costello put in a lot of work to get to this point.

“We are glad we were able to work together with the LPCA and other stakeholders in the community to come to terms on a project scale that works for everyone,” said Dan Goodier of Goodies Properties in a press release. “We appreciate everyone’s hard work thus far, and are looking forward to bringing a great new project to Locust Point.”

The building design features a brick facade on the first two floors and a mostly-glass design for the upper floors. The project may have a ground-floor retail space. Floor plates will range from 7,500 sq. ft. to 18,000 sq. ft.

“We think a boutique office building will perform very well on this side of the harbor,” said Goodier. “There are not too many places in Baltimore that smaller tenants can have a private elevator entrance into their space, have panoramic views of the skyline and Domino Sugar, on-site parking, and still be on I-95 in a minute or two.”

The project design will go before Baltimore City Planning Department’s Urban Design & Architecture Advisory Panel (UDAAP) on July 18th. Goodier Properties is hoping to start construction in early-2020 and deliver the project in Summer 2021.

The development team consists of Waverly Construction (General Contractor), Moseley Architects (Architect), Geo-Tech Associates (Geotechnical and Environmental Engineering), and Morris & Ritchie Associates (Civil Engineering). NAI KLNB’s Dave Fritz and Jesse Schwartzman will be the leasing team for the development.

New renderings courtesy of Goodies Properties and Moseley Architects 

Rendering courtesy of Goodier Properties and Marks Thomas Architects of a five-story, 60,000 to 65,000 sq. ft. office building proposed in Demember of 2017. 

Project site before demolition began

Project site after demolition

Stevenson Street 

Woodall Street 

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.