Grain Elevator Site to Re-Emerge as $200M Mixed-Use Development

BALTIMORE-Development of a $200-million residential, office, and retail property has just gotten a significant push forward. The city’s Planning Commission has signed off on the rezoning of a 15-acre parcel in the waterfront peninsula community of Locust Point from industrial to mixed-use, thereby paving the way for the first phase of the project, which calls for the conversion of a former 290 ft-high export grain elevator into a condominium building. Silo Point II LLC, a group of local developers, is behind the project.

A property of agricultural product producer Archer Daniels Midland Co. until last March when the company shut down the facility, the grain elevator site, which also holds a 90-ft concrete grain silo, is designated as 1700 Beason St. and 1800 E. Fort Ave. The commission may have signed off on the rezoning, but it is still keeping a tight reign on the project–and for good reason. “Since February 2004 a task force of the Locust Point Civic Association has been working with staff and developer on reviewing, discussing and evaluating the Planned Unit Development for the site,” Planning Commission director Otis Rolley III says in the May 20 staff report. “In addition to the concerns the city staff had, the community also expressed concerns about a number of items in the PUD as introduced. They have strongly objected to any hotel use on the site.” Silo Point had originally planned to develop a hotel within the grain elevator. “There were concerns about the nature and amount of the retail, the amount of office space; they wanted the site design to fit in better with the neighborhood and there was concern about the amount of parking.”