Robin Godwin: Construction Begins on Phase I of the Rash Field Redevelopment

A ceremonial groundbreaking took place in January for Phase I of the redevelopment of Rash Field and construction officially started this week. The $16.8-million Phase I will renovate the western side of the 7.5-acre park on the south side of the Inner Harbor.

The project is led by Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore in partnership with Baltimore City Recreation and Parks.

Phase I will add a redeveloped pavilion with a café, outdoor patio, overlook with a partially green roof, bathrooms, a shade structure, and amphitheater seating; a skate park called Jake’s Skate Park; a children’s nature park; a children’s kinetic playground; and new plants and landscaping. These new features will replace a small parking lot (not the one designated for the Maryland Science Center), a green space, a brick patio with a sandbox, and the western edge of the concrete bleachers.

Jake’s Skatepark is named in memory of Jake Owen, a South Baltimore resident, avid skater, and sports lover, who was killed in 2011 when he was five years old by a cell phone-distracted driver.

The café will be “an amenity to the park first and foremost,” Waterfront Partnership President Laurie Schwartz told SouthBMore.com in April 2019. The interior will have room for about 20 to 30 tables. Schwartz said it will not be a full-service restaurant or kitchen, but likely serve quicker items like paninis. It will have a liquor license and Waterfront Partnership will then work with the community on a memorandum of understanding and The Board of Liquor License Commissioners for Baltimore City (BLLC) to approve the new liquor license.

On the west side of the pavilion, a shade structure will cover amphitheater-style seating that will face the children’s play areas. Schwartz said this is so parents can watch their kids in the shade.

Mahan Rykiel serves as the park’s designer after being selected from a group of 13 submissions in 2015. Gensler was the designer of the pavilion. Whiting-Turner is the construction manager and general contractor.

The City will contribute more than $9.5 million towards design and construction costs, and Waterfront Partnership has raised an additional $4.3 million from the State of Maryland and nearly $1 million from private sources. Fundraising efforts continue for the park.

Currently a new electrical transformer is being installed so that demolition of the existing pavilion can proceed.

Waterfront Partnership is hoping to have Phase I opened in Spring or Summer of 2021.

Waterfront Partnership will be turning its attention to fundraising for Phase II. Schwartz said in the perfect world Phase II in the eastern section of the park will begin as Phase I is completed so that they can keep Whiting-Turner on site.

The eastern section of the park was built as a stadium for Southern High School (now Digital Harbor High School) athletics in 1975, but Southern began using different fields several years later. The concrete track and cement bleachers remain, and the former grass field has been the home to Baltimore Beach Volleyball for the last 19 years. It also serves as a memorial for the Pride of Baltimore and as an open green space that was once the home of a trapeze school.

In Phase II, this section will become a reorganized seven-court volleyball area adjacent to the pavilion and café, a large lawn that will be used for youth sports and events, a game lawn, a shade lawn, a repositioned Pride of Baltimore memorial, and a myriad of sloped paths that will replace the bleachers and transition the change in grade from Key Hwy. to the ground level of the park. Plans for Phase II will continue to develop.

Phase II is expected to cost $12 million and fundraising began in recent months. Waterfront Partnership’s fundraising plan for Phase 2 calls for $5.25 million from the State, $4.75 million from the City, and another $2 million from private sources. Waterfront Partnership will submit another request for State funds next year.

Ideas for the redevelopment of Rash Field first began to arise in the early 2000s.