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The Dripby Mark Reutter6:45 amOct 31, 20160

Daybreak on the harbor

A view of Baltimore’s ever-changing waterfront

Above: Light radiates through the steel ribs of the Point Street Apartments, the first residential structure at Harbor Point. (Mark Reutter)

Up early on Friday, we reached the Harbor Point complex in Fells Point in time for the sunrise.

Phase 1 of the projected $1 billion piece of office, retail and residential real estate is nearing completion. Some of the 103 apartment units in the Exelon Tower are already occupied.

Employees from the energy giant will soon move into the skyscraper, located on the remediated grounds of a factory that produced chromium metal for over a hundred years.

Next to be constructed at Harbor Point is the Point Street Apartments, a 16-story structure facing Thames and Caroline streets. (For the strategy behind Harbor Point, see this 2012 Brew story.)

Already flanking the apartment building is a snazzy new plaza – freshly sodded lawn, fancy marble pavers – where one can get a good look at the surrounding harbor.

It is a landscape of dramatic changes, a world where shipyards, chemical plants, rail yards and tugboat operations have given way to condos, office towers and marinas over the last 40 years.

Here are some views that illustrate those changes:

Looking west to the Inner Harbor basin, with the Legg Mason Tower at Harbor East and the older concrete towers along Pratt and Light streets downtown.

To the west: The Legg Mason Building and expanding Four Seasons Hotel cast an emerald glow over Harbor East, an ex-warehouse and rail freight district. The iconic concrete towers of Mayor William Donald Schaefer’s Inner Harbor (built in the 1970s and 80s) bask in the far sunlight.

HarborView splits in two the low horizontal tapestry of South Baltimore.

To the southwest: The Pinnacle condos at HarborView split the horizontal tapestry of South Baltimore. Before HarborView, Bethlehem Steel Corp. operated a sprawling ship repair yard there.

Plumes of heat from the Domino refinery drift over Locust Point. Domino is the last working factory in the Inner Harbor.

To the south: Plumes of heat rise up from the still-dark facade of the Domino Sugar refinery. Opened in 1922, Domino is the last major working industry on the waterfront between Locust Point and Canton.

Baltimore's newest skyscraper nearing completion at Harbor Point.

To the north: Baltimore’s newest skyscraper is 21 stories high and soon to be occupied by employees transferring from Constellation Energy’s headquarters on East Pratt Street. Built atop a factory that was the world’s largest processor of chrome ore, the Exelon Tower will boast one of the world’s largest energy trading floors.

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