The city has scrapped an old plan to redevelop the 236-year-old Lexington Market in favor of a new arrangement with building rehab specialists Seawall Development, which officials say would retain the market’s main building while saving as much $20 million in constructions costs.
Seawall, best known for its conversion projects in North Baltimore like Union Mill, nearby Union Collective and, perhaps most popularly, Remington’s R. House, has signed on as the developer for Lexington Market’s overhaul, Mayor Catherine Pugh announced at her weekly press briefing Oct. 3. The project under Seawall’s vision will cost $30 to $40 million, the company estimates, down from $50 to $60 million under the old plan.
The most recent (and now nixed) plan for Lexington Market, for which Whiting-Turner did pre-development work and Murphy & Dittenhafer served as the architect, entailed building a new multi-level glass structure on an adjacent parking lot and tearing down the existing East Market building, which houses about 60 merchants.
But Seawall’s vision would retain the building and repurpose it and add a new, smaller building on the market’s south parking lot. It would also open up the arcade building on W. Lexington Street as a pedestrian thoroughfare, “occasionally with a farmer’s market aspect to it,” said Kirby Fowler, chair of the Baltimore Public Markets Corporation and Lexington Market Inc., and chair of the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore.
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Now celebrating its 25th season, the farmers market will be located on the grounds of the historic Pikesville Armory, at 640 Reisterstown Road.