The redevelopment of the Preakness at Pimlico is a $375 million project geared towards improving the area along Northern Parkway and opening space on the field for public use between races. (J.K. Schmid)
By J. K. Schmid
Special to the AFRO
It’s been a strange and strained year for Preakness.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic leaves Baltimoreans self-isolating out of public spaces, public spectacle and public eye, all while the eyes of the world fall on Pimlico Racetrack to witness the second leg of races between the Kentucky Derby and Belmont stakes.
Delayed from May, the race took place Oct. 3. In an upset, Swiss Skydiver, a chestnut philly from WinStar Farm, beat the favorite, Authentic, by a neck.
The statistics and stories of the horses, their breeders and riders, give an answer to who will win and settle many anxieties and uncertainties at the intersection of politics and culture. We are all trying to adjust to the era of COVID-19 that has left over 200,000 Americans dead, and over a million persons dead worldwide.
It’s a slight return to normal and business as usual.
But normal and usual aren’t sustainable, particularly for Baltimore’s Park Heights, the community surrounding the Pimlico Racetrack.
Last year, Preakness and Pimlico were in crisis, with a real threat that the race would leave the city along with tens of millions of tourism dollars, dollars that create jobs for Baltimore’s third-largest industry, hospitality.
The Sport of Kings has not been benevolent to Park Heights. Decades of neglect and disinvestment in the community have ramped up crime, poverty and violence outside the arena.
An Annapolis bill passed in May permits stakeholders in Preakness’s and Pimlico’s redevelopment to issue $375 million in bonds. In addition to saving the race for Baltimore, the third of a billion dollar-project is oriented towards opening up development along Northern Parkway and opening the green space of the field itself to public use between races.
However, five months since the bond authorization, ground has not broken on the new project.
“It’s really complex,” Gary A. McGuigan, executive vice president of Capital Projects Development Group and Maryland Stadium Authority, told the AFRO “If I could stress anything, it’s that this is a long-ranged complex process that we’re engaging in with multiple stakeholders.”
Stakeholders include, the Stronach Group, owner of the racetrack, the Maryland Racing Commission, the Horsemen’s Association, Anne Arundel County (wherein Laurel Park racetrack is situated), Sinai Hospital and Baltimore City.
McGuigan said that no community residents are a part of this steering committee.
“We understand community is extremely important to the success of this project,” McGuigan explained. “Once we get the architect on board, we will be getting into the community and having plenty of meetings and hearing their thoughts and seeing what we can incorporate into the project with community voices,” he added.
The plan remains on schedule, meaning an architect could be hired in December.
“What needs to be upgraded, quite frankly, the design process, once we get an architect on board, is gonna be a couple years,” McGuigan disclosed. “So, there may be some shovels in the ground before that time, but it can’t be extensive,” he said.
The moment now is dedicated to establishing corporations to implement new plans and policy, and bringing many of the region’s largest institutions and organizations into agreement.
“One of the things that’s in the bill is that we cannot issue bonds until multiple agreements are in place, and when I say ‘multiple’ I’m saying somewhere between 10 or 15, and we still haven’t resolved that,” McGuigan said. “So that means we can’t start construction until all of those agreements are in place.”
McGuigan also said that none of these processes are contingent, making these agreements matters of “when” and “how”over “if.”
William “Bill” Cole, IV, partner at Margrave Strategies who negotiated directly on behalf of Baltimore City, was hired to continue his work after leaving Baltimore Development Corporation.
“I think the transformational impact this project could have on the community was one of the driving forces behind the city’s interest in fighting so hard to make certain the Preakness didn’t leave,” Cole told the AFRO.
On its own, Pimlico racecourse, presently, doesn’t add a tremendous amount to the surrounding community,” Mr. Cole said. “The impact is minimal, in terms of both economic impact and job impact. But in rethinking what Pimlico could be, and in the deal we ultimately agreed upon, through the negotiations, we ended up with a project that is not just about a racetrack, but about a facility that connects in a very real way to the surrounding community.”
This “very real way,” still in planning and negotiation, is the rotation of the ractertrack and and attached facilities so that the green space of the track has street and public access from Park Heights. This rotation brings a strip of lots on Northern Parkway into a new development footprint that will allow investment. The new ractetrack facing will mean the ceding of some property owned by Sinai hospital creating a public path to the new planned public space.
“So, instead of it becoming a walled-off 100-acre property in Park Heights, it now becomes an integrated piece of land that has huge economic impact and benefits all the surrounding communities, most notably: Park Heights,” Cole said.”
The rotation pivots away from a hope that Preakness revenue will trickle down to Park Heights.
“The annual economic impact is important for the city, but not necessarily as important for Park Heights,” Cole said. “What’s important for Park Heights, is having a development project in the middle of the community that creates job opportunities and lasting impact for the residents of Park Heights, and that’s exactly what this project does.”
“It’s a bifurcated win for the city: we can keep the economic impact of Preakness and we get that annual unique exposure for Baltimore, but we also get the benefit of hundreds of millions of dollars of new investment in Park Heights,” Mr. Cole said.
Brandon Scott, a shoo-in for Baltimore’s Mayor, was a former resident of Park Heights. He now lives in Frankford.
“You have an opportunity now for Pimlico and Preakness and Park Heights to all have a renaissance at the same time,” Mr. Scott said. “Not just one thing in Park Heights, but something through Park Heights.”
“This is a generational conversation, I don’t know the Park Heights that my grandparents moved to, I know the Parks Heights where every corner from Park Circle to Northern Parkway was a drug shop with extremely high levels of violence,” Mr. Scott said. “Even though Park Heights isn’t where it used to be, if my generation wins, I can see progress.”
The Park Heights that was isn’t gone. A casual stroll from Pimlico Racetrack to Arlington Elementary or Pimlico Middle reveals much of the character of a once prosperous middle class neighborhood could still be recovered.
The two aforementioned schools were refurbished and revitalized as part of Project CORE’s one billion dollar statewide renovation project. It’s a project that Mr. McGuigan oversaw.
“We’ve got one chance to get this right, it’s an investment for 30 to 50 years,” Mr. McGuigan said. “Everybody wants this done as quickly as possible. But if you rush something too quickly, the end result may be something that isn’t liked by everybody, and isn’t the most efficient and best use of state money.”
In the interim, amongst the revitalized schools, are gleaming new playgrounds, Park Heights is moving forward already. Park Heights Renaissance has established a community garden in Arlington. The no-doubt collapsed revenue from Saturday’s race and the dwindling Inner Harbor economy will be a real test of the earnestness in linking the issues of Preakness and Pimlico Racetrack to Park Heights.
“We’ve got one chance to get this right, it’s an investment for 30 to 50 years,” McGuigan said.