A project to restore the historic Rawlings Conservatory Palm House in Druid Hill Park has been postponed after city officials decided to seek new bids for a general contractor. Alex Silverman, a public relations officer for Baltimore’s Department of Recreation and Parks, said in a series o f emails on Thursday that a request to hire a contractor will not come before the Board of Estimates as stated on its Aug. 5 agenda because the restoration project is being readvertised. The agenda for the Aug. 5 Board of Estimates meeting, posted on the city’s website this month, includes on Page 268 a request from the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks to approve an award to Wohlsen Construction Company for the project. Wohlsen was one of two companies that bid for the job last year. Its bid was $9,448,320. The second bidder, W. M. Schlosser Co., submitted a bid of $11,966,000. “The Department finds the bid acceptable and recommends the award of this contract to Wohlsen Construction Company,” the parks department said in a memo to the spending panel. Celeste Amato, Chief of Staff in City Comptroller Bill Henry’s office, confirmed that the parks department has withdrawn its item from the board’s Aug. 5 agenda. ‘MBE/WBE issue’ This is the second time in two months that the Palm House contract has been pulled from the Board of Estimates agenda. It was originally scheduled to be considered on June 15 but officials moved the item to Aug. 5. For both meetings, Schlosser planned to protest the award to Wohlsen. The decision to readvertise the Palm House contract restarts the bidding process and means the restoration work likely won’t get underway this calendar year as preservationists had hoped. The solicitation and award of multi-million-dollar city construction contracts is a process that can take half a year or more. During the now-canceled bidding process that led to Wohlsen’s recommendation, nearly six months passed between the opening of construction bids on Dec. 17, 2025, and the June 15 Board of Estimates meeting initially set for its contract to be considered. Asked why the item was withdrawn, Silverman said in an email message that the project is being readvertised “due to an MBE/WBE issue.” She did not elaborate. MBE stands for Minority Business Enterprise and WBE stands for Women-owned Business Enterprise. The city sets goals for hiring minority and women-owned contracting firms working on city-funded capital improvement projects, both new construction and renovation. The memo from the parks department to the Board of Estimates stated “MBE/WBE Participation not required,” and no MBE or WBE subcontractors were identified for the project on the Aug. 5 agenda. ‘In desperate need of a full restoration’ Fifty feet high, the Palm House is the tallest of five greenhouses that make up the Howard P. Rawlings Conservatory at 3100 Swann Drive in Druid Hill Park. Each one features a different plant collection – Palm, Orchid, Mediterranean, Tropical and Desert. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the conservatory was designed by George Frederick and its initial phases opened on Aug. 26, 1888. The construction cost in 1888 was $23,375 — equal to $821,631.25 in purchasing power today, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics conversion based on an average inflation rate of 2.61 percent per year. The Palm House and Orchid Room are considered the most historically-significant parts of the conservatory, and the Palm House is its centerpiece. Its skeleton was modeled after grand European greenhouses to contain towering palms, including the Green Malayan Coconut; Bismarck; Fiji Fan; Cat and Foxtail specimens, as well as seasonal and tropical plantings. Restoration of the historic Palm House is a top priority of The Friends of the Rawlings Conservatory, a non-profit group that raises funds to support the conservatory and its gardens. The conservatory’s last major restoration took place in 2002 to 2004. “Time has taken its toll, and the Palm House is now in desperate need of a full restoration of the windows and structure to ensure its preservation for future generations,” the group states on its website. One year, not four Silverman did not provide a timeline for readvertising the project or say when the restoration work might begin, but she said a statement that the parks department gave to the Board of Estimates about the duration of the project was “an error.” The memo to the Board of Estimates stated that the duration of the contract to Wohlsen would be 1,460 days, or four years. Silverman said the contract is expected to be for one year, not four. The public relations officer said the parks department has already addressed one problem at the Palm House – broken glass panes caused by palm trees growing too tall and bursting through the roof – by removing the plants that caused the damage. She asked for a correction to a July 28 Baltimore Fishbowl article that referred to the Palm House as “the second oldest steel-framed greenhouse in the U. S,” even though numerous organizations and publications describe the conservatory that way, including Baltimore Heritage. The City of Baltimore website calls the conservatory “the second-oldest steel framed-and-glass building still in use in the U. S,” citing the landmark listing approved by the city’s Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation. Some historians call the landmark either the oldest or second oldest glass-and-iron framed conservatory, avoiding questions about the use of steel. The Washington Post has called it “the second oldest surviving public glass conservatory in the United States,” after the Conservatory of Flowers in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. The Howard Peters Rawlings Conservatory Botanical Gardens website calls Baltimore’s conservatory “the oldest, public iron-and-glass framed conservatory still in use in the United States.” “We are the second oldest public conservatory in the U.S.,” Silverman said.  ‘All plants will be removed’ Once construction begins, Silverman said in an email, “The Palm House and the Orchid Room will be closed to the public during construction. The intention is to keep the rest of the Conservatory and gardens open to the public during construction, but there will likely be periods when we will have to close them, as the nature of the work requires.” All plants will be removed from the Palm House while work is underway, she added. “Some will be salvaged for replanting, and some will be salvaged for sale. The completed planting will include many new plants and some salvaged plants.” Silverman turned down a request from a reporter to meet at the Palm House with parks department representatives to get more questions answered. “We’d like to wait to meet about the project until this next step is complete and we know the timeline,” she said. ...read more read less