The Missing Piece
The Fitzgerald sets out to close a gap in the city's urban fabric. Given all the hurdles that had to be cleared, it is a wonder the $78 million mixed-use development called the Fitzgerald was built at all.
From the outset, the building—which takes its name from F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, who once lived nearby—proved to be a daunting undertaking. The University of Baltimore wanted to transform a Midtown parking lot into a place that both generated income for the university and "contributed to the economic revitalization of the city," says Steve Cassard, the university's vice president of facilities management and capital planning. If it worked, the structure would close a gap in the urban fabric, connecting the neighborhoods of Bolton Hill and Mount Vernon. But that was a big "if."