06-11-2023 HOF - Flipbook - Page 41
Baltimore Sun Media | Sunday, June 11, 2023 41
A
nthony T. “Tony” Hawkins was there
when the magic happened, when a
waterfront park in downtown Baltimore
became overnight a symbol of the city’s
rebirth and its grand potential as a destination for visitors. Harborplace opened
in 1980, and James Rouse, the Maryland-based developer who envisioned
the project, had summoned Hawkins
back to his hometown to manage it.
There was huge excitement, but no one was sure whether a “festival
market” in the formerly industrial Inner Harbor would work. The city’s
population losses had accelerated, and, while tall ships had attracted thousands of visitors during the nation’s bicentennial four years earlier, there
was a looming question: Could Rouse work the same magic for Baltimore
that he had worked for Boston with the redevelopment of Faneuil Hall
and Quincy Market?
The answer came almost immediately: Millions of people visited Harborplace to eat, drink and shop in the waterfront pavilions. Hawkins, who had
been managing a mall in New Jersey for the Rouse Co., had a big job on his
hands, handling tenants, employees and visitors from near and far who
wanted to see the heralded Baltimore renaissance for themselves.
“I didn’t understand the enormity of it, the impact it would have,”
Hawkins says. “We were all surprised. But it was right on the money, man.”
Just what his native city needed at the time.
Born in 1945, Tony Hawkins grew up on the west side of the city, just a few
blocks from one of Rouse’s first urban retail projects, the Mondawmin Mall.
But as a high school student at City College and later an undergraduate at
Morgan State College and the Johns Hopkins University, Hawkins had no
interest in real estate development, his ultimate career track.
Age: 78
Hometown: Baltimore
Current residence: Baltimore
Education: City College High School,
Morgan State College, the Johns Hopkins University
Career highlights: Vice president, Rouse Co.;
first general manager of Harborplace
Civic and charitable activities: Baltimore Area
Convention and Visitors Association; SEED School
of Maryland, East Baltimore Development Inc.;
Kernan Hospital
Family: Married to Paula Rome; a blended family
of five children and one grandchild
He loved school and admired
his teachers. He wanted to be an
educator.
“I started at Morgan, then
the Ford Foundation gave me a
scholarship to attend Hopkins,”
Hawkins says. “They were
recruiting us to become principals.”
And he saw himself as one.
The road to the principal’s
office started in a classroom.
Hawkins taught sixth grade at a
middle school in West Baltimore.
He was married, and his wife was
pregnant. He wasn’t making much
money. So he took a job in sales,
going after school and on weekends to the homes of new parents
to persuade them to buy a high
chair called Wonda-Chair. “The
key selling point was, you couldn’t
tip them over,” Hawkins says. “I
did that for four years. I made a
good bit of money.”
Still, he struggled. It was
Hawkins’ aunt, Marion Banfield,
who suggested a new path: a
job with James Rouse, visionary developer of Columbia and
shopping malls. Rouse offered
Hawkins a chance to learn the
mall business from the ground
up, from maintenance and security to dealing with tenants. He
sent Hawkins to a Rouse property in New Jersey, a multilevel
mall in Cherry Hill, and that’s
where he stayed, content with his
new career, until Rouse called on
him again, this time to launch and
manage Harborplace.
It was the best of times, the
shot of energy downtown Baltimore needed. “It was a big deal,
and I got to meet a lot of wonderful people,” Hawkins says.
He eventually became a Rouse
vice president and stayed with the
company for three decades. He
later established Hawkins Development Group and served as chair
of the Baltimore Area Convention
and Visitors Association.
“Most important to him was
his ability to make a difference
in his hometown of Baltimore,”
says Jody Clark, who worked
alongside Hawkins as an executive at Rouse. “He was the steward of Harborplace, Cross Keys,
Mondawmin and The Gallery at
Harborplace, and worked to make
them special jewels that served
“There was nothing
ever too big, with too
many moving parts,
that [intimidated] Tony.
It was really a [matter]
of keeping your head
down and staying true
to the things that you
believed in.”
— Drew Hawkins, a former
Morgan Stanley executive
the community.”
Drew Hawkins, a cousin and
an accomplished business executive in his own right, says he drew
inspiration from his older relative’s management of Harborplace, his networking abilities,
negotiating skills, commitment to
serving customers, his persistence
and perfectionism.
“There was nothing ever too
big, with too many moving parts,
that [intimidated] Tony,” says
Drew Hawkins, a former Morgan
Stanley executive who established Edyoucore, a financial
advisory for professional athletes
and entertainers, in 2020. “It was
really a [matter] of keeping your
head down and staying true to the
things that you believed in.”
Harborplace fell on hard times
in the years since Rouse sold it.
Tony Hawkins, who lives with
his wife, the retired public relations executive Paula Rome, in
Harbor East, has watched with
dismay and anger as the “festival market” declined under new
ownership. His hope now is that
developer David Bramble will be
able to restore the magic that once
made the corner of Pratt and Light
streets an attraction for millions of
visitors a year. An ever-confident
and positive Baltimorean, Tony
Hawkins says: “There’s no reason
why it can’t be good again.”
— Dan Rodricks
