Days before the general election, a group of commercial tenants at a former MCB Real Estate development project in Canton warned against approving a ballot question that would give the firm authority to overhaul Harborplace at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.

The group, led by a veterinarian whose practice is located at the Can Co. shopping center and the current and former owners of Chesapeake Wine Co., said MCB Real Estate was known to renege on promises, give priority to national chains instead of local businesses and ultimately sold the development at a loss earlier this year. The shopping mall, located across the street from Canton’s Boston Street waterfront, once housed a can-making factory that closed in the 1980s and has since been flipped into an office park and retail center.

The tenants, speaking to reporters outside a shuttered Nalley Fresh restaurant, urged voters to “get all the facts” before voting on Question F, the ballot measure that, if approved, would enable residential development at Harborplace. Representing the “Vote F-No” coalition, the tenants said they were astounded to see MCB Real Estate gain control of the prestigious Inner Harbor property given its reputation among the Canton store owners.

“I am embarrassed for MCB Real Estate, because they’re a disgrace,” said Phyllis Wert, a former Chesapeake Wine Co. owner. “People have to know what MCB is and what they’re telling you, what they’re selling, what they sold us. And we got nothing.”

Wert said the company delivered business owners a compelling slideshow presentation when it acquired the Can Co., vowing to make upgrades and usher in a new, prosperous wave for the shopping center. But everything, Wert said, from security and maintenance to landscaping, went in a different direction and did not resemble what MCB Real Estate once pledged.

For example, Wert said, MCB Real Estate initially said they would repaint the facade blue and white to give the shopping center a “nautical” theme to match the nearby waterfront. Instead, Wert said, the company went with “battleship gray” because the paint color was on sale.

A spokesperson for the firm, who declined to provide their name, called the tenants’ remarks “another desperate attempt” to sink Question F. The spokesperson said no other commercial tenants at the company’s other properties have voiced similar concerns and blamed Monday’s statements on a personal grievance over “delinquent rent,” which at one point totaled more than $100,000.

The tenants are using misinformation to “distract from what matters,” the spokesperson continued, “an investment in our future by a proven, local developer.”

Wert said she has never met MCB Real Estate co-founder and managing partner P. David Bramble, whom she accused of never visiting the site or engaging with business owners while he owned the property. MCB Real Estate and New York-based Angelo, Gordon & Co. bought the complex for about $43 million in 2017 and sold it this past summer to Greenspring Realty Partners and Reba Holdings.

As it gears up for the Nov. 5 election, MCB Real Estate has ratcheted up its voter outreach campaign in recent weeks, with the company putting $240,000 into a ballot issue committee just this month, according to campaign finance documents. That group, Baltimore for a New Harborplace, is controlled by MCB employees and lobbyists and has spent nearly all of its money on advertising and paid canvassing.

As of Monday, more than 55,000 Baltimore voters had already cast ballots by mail or during early voting, according to Maryland State Board of Elections data.

Bramble and his team unveiled their proposal for a new Harborplace almost a year ago to date, which called for razing the existing two-story pavilions in favor of two adjoined residential towers with 900 units plus two large commercial buildings. The designs featured space for retail, restaurants, a park and an amphitheater.

The reveal, staged at the Inner Harbor pavilion on Light Street, featured remarks and praise from Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Mayor Brandon Scott and other local lawmakers, who pledged to throw their full support behind the vision.

The project is expected to cost at least $900 million, and Bramble has said at least $400 million would come from the public sector — though he has stated it won’t come from city government. Pre-development legislation all but sailed through the Baltimore City Council earlier this year.

Attorney and former mayoral candidate Thiru Vignarajah appeared with the Can Co. tenant group on Monday. Vignarajah, a former deputy attorney general of Maryland, campaigned on blocking the deal with MCB Real Estate before he abandoned his bid two weeks before the primary. He then filed a lawsuit against the state board of elections on behalf of a group of concerned Baltimore residents, arguing that Question F was written in a deliberately challenging way to confuse voters.

Anne Arundel County Judge Cathleen Vitale, a former Republican lawmaker, sided with Vignarajah and suggested the city had overstepped its bounds. Vitale allowed the question to remain on the ballot, but ordered the votes not to be counted. The Maryland Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s decision earlier this month.

Vignarajah, during remarks Monday, continued to chide the ballot question as intentionally misleading. He also knocked the governor and “city politicians” for their commitment to the project.