What Happened to Baltimore’s Harborplace?

On a Sunday afternoon in November, downtown Baltimore’s Inner Harbor is abuzz. It’s day three of Brilliant Baltimore, the city’s newly combined light-art-and-book festival. Crowds pack the waterfront promenade, perusing tents and stalls selling books, stationery, crafts, food, drink, and more. Some pose in front of the light installations that dot the perimeter of the harbor. Skaters glide around to music at the ice rink near the amphitheater, which opened for the holidays.

But just steps away, Harborplace—a twin-pavilion festival marketplace with an attached mall that’s been the anchor of Charm City tourism for almost four decades—sits all but idle. Music echoes overhead in a mostly empty lower-level food court in the Light Street pavilion. A few stray customers peruse Natty Boh gear and Maryland-proud attire at Crabby Jack’s General Store. Except for a few food vendors, a two-story H&M, a Hooters franchise (half-full on an NFL game day), and the kitschy Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museum upstairs, vacancies abound.