Stadium Square Footprint Increases as Caves Valley Partners Purchases 1.3 Acre Lot

Caves Valley Partners (CVP), the developers of Stadium Square, completed the purchase of a 1.3 acre lot on the 100 block of W. Ostend St. last week, growing the footprint of Phase II of its $250 million mixed-used development in South Baltimore. The lot is currently used for Ravens tailgating and was owned by Himmelrich Associates.

The lot is adjacent to the site of a proposed six-story, 60,000 sq. ft. office building that will be the future home of United Way of Central Maryland, which will be leasing 27,000 sq. ft. of the building. The office building was previously slated to be eight stories and 80,000 sq. ft., but the acquisition of this new lot allowed CVP to scale down the building size since it has more land to work with for the construction of an additional building. CVP is now planning another office building for the newly-acquired lot and Arsh Mirmiran of CVP told SouthBMore.com that the footprint will be twice as big, allowing each floor to have twice the square footage as the floors of the United Way building.

“CVP was hoping to acquire the property since day one of planning for Stadium Square,” Mirmiran told SouthBMore.com.

CVP is working on preliminary plans for the lot and expects the new office building to have ground floor retail and a parking garage that will be used by both buildings. Mirmiran said the size of the new building will depend on leasing activity.

Demolition began this week on the existing brick building located on the United Way site and full construction is expected to begin later this year. Mirmiran said there is currently discussion with two other tenants, each looking for a floor of the building or approximately 10,000 sq. ft. of office space.

Stadium Square will cover three consecutive blocks of South Baltimore in Sharp-Leadenhall and the South Baltimore Neighborhood between Cross St. on the north, Race St. on the east, Leadenhall St. on the west, and both sides of Ostend St. to the south.

Phase 1 of Stadium Square includes two apartment buildings on the northern most block of the development, Block 1. The Hanover Co. is constructing a new building with 293 market-rate apartments, 14,000 sq. ft. of retail, and 450-500 parking spaces. Work is expected to start in the fourth quarter of 2015 or the first quarter of 2016. CVP is also building a new apartment building as it will repurpose five existing historic rowhomes and two city lots at the corner of Cross and Leadenhall. The facades of the five rowhomes will be kept and behind them a new four- to five-story, 21- to 28-unit apartment building with a 6,000 sq. ft. retail space will be constructed. Work is expected to start on this building in early 2016.

Demolition is currently underway on the existing warehouses on the 1100 blocks of Race and Leadenhall St. to make way for Phase I. Demolition is also underway on the former Furst Bros. property, which will be part of Phase III. This phase will be a mixed-use development with the largest retail component of any of the three phases.

The lot used for Ravens parking

An eastern view of the lot with the United Way site getting demolished in the background

United Way rendering