Why Redwood Street Represents Downtown History and Renewal

By Jacques Kelly and the Baltimore Sun

It’s worth asking, “Just what is downtown?” now that so much of Baltimore’s traditional business district has morphed into something else.

A sign wrapped around an aged office building proclaims it is being converted into new apartments.

The old Continental Trust, a landmark at Baltimore and Calvert streets, is the latest office to become bedrooms, kitchens and baths. This one comes with a nice history. It survived the Baltimore Fire of 1904 and was completely rebuilt after the flames ate through it.

The novelist Dashiell Hammett worked here for the Pinkerton detective agency in 1915 and clipped the name, “Continental Op” from his home office.

The trend of making apartment houses out of Class B and C downtown structures has been going on since 1998, when Washington developer David Hillman saw a residential future in the vacant Hecht department store building on Howard Street.

Who knew there are now apartments above the Walgreens at Fayette and St. Paul?

Commercial broker and investor Brad Byrnes, who works with his father, Kemp, has seen the sea change first hand. He represents buyers and sellers and owns property on Redwood Street, in what was once the heart of the traditional financial and legal district.

The Redwood Exchange building is a classic 1912 office structure in downtown Baltimore. (Kevin Richardson / Baltimore Sun)

“Redwood Street is the best microcosm of what is great about downtown today,” he said. “There’s the Shakespeare theater, apartments, restaurants, hotels, Werner’s Diner and office buildings and the amenities of the harbor nearby.”

He points out that within a mile of Pratt and Light streets, there’s 42,500 permanent residents, citing a figure from the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore.

“Ten years ago, it would have been unthinkable that so many people were living downtown,” Byrnes said.

He pointed out that during COVID, some urban pundits were forecasting that business and residents would flee downtown Baltimore because of its density.

“The opposite has happened. You are actually seeing older office buildings and hotels being converted into apartments due to the demand for downtown housing,” Byrnes said.

Byrnes is optimistic about the estimated $5 billion investment going into downtown’s anchor institutions — the two stadiums, Lexington Market, the Baltimore Arena and the University of Maryland and its BioPark.

His latest endeavor is a classic 1912 office structure (full of amazing stained glass, bronze and brass) built by the Robert Garrett brokerage and later the home of attorneys at Gordon Feinblatt LLC. He has renamed the place the Redwood Exchange.

The Redwood Exchange building in downtown Baltimore is leasing offices. (Kevin Richardson / Baltimore Sun)

Byrnes is leasing it as offices and likes the idea of keeping a blend of commercial business spaces in the the neighborhood, which is characterized by remarkable Beaux Arts architecture.

The old buildings possess touches of Old World detail and craftsmanship, a graceful style that flourished before the arrival of modern architecture. Architects used limestone, brick, granite and marble to create a dignified streetscape for the heart of old Baltimore.

“These Redwood Street buildings are like old friends. They just speak Baltimore,” said Walter Schamu, an architect and former president of the Baltimore chapter of the American Institute of Architects. “Older buildings are generous — they give a lot back visually, with their huge windows designed to admit light built before the fluorescent tube.”

There’s history behind the limestone and brick. Thurgood Marshall, the first African American named to the U.S. Supreme Court, practiced law on Redwood Street in the 1930s in the Phoenix Building, which stood between Charles and Light.

Much of the legal work in an espionage high drama case of the 1940s and 50s, Whittaker Chambers vs. Alger Hiss, took place at the old Maryland Trust building and in 10 Light Street. Both buildings are now leased as apartments.

“Downtown now stretches from Harbor East and Harbor Point to the stadiums and the Martin Luther King. It includes the historic downtown, Perkins Homes redevelopment, and the University of Maryland,” Byrnes said. “It’s the economic engine of the region.”