For the past three years, members of Baltimore’s design community have come together at Harborplace for a family-friendly event that celebrates Baltimore and the Inner Harbor. City Sand is a sculpture competition in which teams of architects and landscape architects raced against the clock to create sand sculptures near the amphitheater between the two Harborplace pavilions at Pratt and Light Streets, while spectators surveyed their progress and voted for the best creation. For many, the event signaled the start of summer in Baltimore, with the sand sculptures at the harbor conjuring visions of sand castles at the beach. The theme of City Sand 2025 was “Authentic Baltimore.” Photo credit: Ed Gunts Held in June, City Sand has been a collaboration between the Baltimore Architecture Foundation (BAF) and MCB Real Estate, the owner of the Harborplace pavilions. It was a revival of an earlier sand sculpture tradition that began in 1989, when the Rouse Company owned Harborplace, and ended in 2012, after Harborplace was acquired by an out-of-town developer, Ashkenazy Acquisition Corporation, which wouldn’t participate. The BAF is a non-profit affiliate of the Baltimore chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). The foundation celebrates design and the built environment through programs and events such as the Doors Open Baltimore weekend. MCB agreed to work with the BAF to bring the event back after it reached an agreement to buy the Harborplace pavilions out of receivership in 2022. The sale was finalized on June 21, 2023, and the first City Sand revival was on June 24, 2023. For MCB, it was a way to bring back memories of good times at Harborplace, get people excited about coming to the waterfront, and promote plans for the future. In the fall of 2023, MCB unveiled plans to raze the two pavilions and replace them with a mixed-use development that contains two apartment towers, offices, shops, restaurants and public space. Officials are aiming to start construction later this year.  A high-ranking city planner, Caitlin Audette, told a tourism group this spring that one of the first steps will be closing the Light Street-to-Calvert-Street traffic spur that separates the Harborplace pavilions from McKeldin Plaza, which will be part of the footprint of MCB’s development. The theme of the 2023 City Sand contest was “Reimagining Harborplace – The Future of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.” “Celebrating Baltimore’s Neighborhoods” was the 2024 theme and “Authentic Baltimore” was last year’s theme. Competitors won the Golden Shovel Award, chosen by a panel of experts, and the People’s Choice Award, chosen by the general public. Local architects were enthusiastic about the new owner of Harborplace bringing back a popular event. “Who doesn’t like to play in the sand?” asked local architect and BAF founder Walter Schamu in 2023. “For years, architect and design teams have sculpted in sand, extraordinary visions from their fertile imaginations – all while the spectators cheered them on to vote for Best-in-Show. Happy that City Sand is back to the Inner Harbor, a summertime tradition.” “We are very excited that City Sand is returning to the Inner Harbor,” architect and longtime BAF member Eric Lowe said in 2023. “For many years, local creatives gathered at the Inner Harbor to sculpt visions in sand to the delight of thousands. With a new chapter beginning for Harborplace, it is heartening that the new stewards share this pride of place with the many design teams that fashioned these creations throughout City Sand’s past. We are looking forward to the revival of this tradition and sharing the creativity of Baltimore with our neighbors and visitors alike.” But this year, City Sand is not on the events calendar. Representatives of the local AIA chapter say it won’t be held and they are focusing on other ways to raise awareness about the importance of good design and urban planning in Baltimore. According to one local architect, the MCB employee who was heavily involved in organizing the event has left the company and no one replaced him to coordinate logistics such as bringing in sand for the event. A complicating factor is that organizers are preparing Baltimore’s downtown waterfront for SAIL250 Maryland Airshow Baltimore, a weeklong event that will bring 14 international tall ships and a projected crowd of 250,000 visitors to Baltimore’s harbor from June 24 to 30. An MCB director did not respond to a request for information about City Sand. A publicist for the company said he would try to find someone to speak about Harborplace but would not make any promises. ...read more read less