To Bob Harrison, Market House is the Annapolis living room.
Grab coffee downtown at 6 a.m. Enjoy a rockfish po’ boy for lunch, or maybe indulge in some roasted oysters and a glass of wine for dinner.
It’s where state senators chat, journalists conduct interviews and people with a few minutes to spare sit with a cool drink to admire the boats on Ego Alley, Spa Creek and the Chesapeake Bay.
So when Harrison, operations manager for this little rectangle of air-conditioned hospitality, rose Monday night before the City Council to defend the place where he spends 60 to 70 hours a week, his voice filled with emotion.
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“I feel I should speak now just to deal with some of the falsehoods I’ve heard tonight,” he said, turning to face the crowd behind him.
The city opened Market House in the 19th century as a place for watermen to sell their catch. Arguments over the long, low white building are a political tradition.
So a proposal for a new lease is bound to bring out the critics.
“The fact that the lease has been granted to a group that includes the mayor’s business partner should be reason enough to vote no,” said Bill Kardash, a well-known critic of city government.
Here we go again.
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Three successive 21st-century mayors spent millions on failed attempts to modernize Market House, launched botched renovations and fostered misguided hopes.
During one brief reopening, the air conditioning was so miscalculated that the frosting melted off bacon doughnuts.
Gavin Buckley, who unsuccessfully bid three times for the lease, dropped his proposal and ran for mayor in 2017 on a pledge to reopen it and make it work.
After he was elected, the city awarded the contract to one of his business partners.
The new mayor abstained from the vote, but critics never forgave him.
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“It’s undeniably the best family-friendly venue in Annapolis, right?” Buckley said. “And so they can come at me all they want.”
A new lease is wrapped up in the final rush to get things done before the fall elections.
It’s a quadrennial tradition, but the dash seems madder this time. It’s about deadlines, sure, but also about legacy for outgoing officials.
The council has just a handful of meetings left to adopt a 2040 growth plan that would raise building height limits at City Dock — fighting over a proposed new hotel will be intense — and consider ranked-choice voting.
It will sell its old public works site for affordable homes, and try to clear the way for more tour guides.
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There’s a new lease for the annual boat shows, but Market House is bound to bring out the personal rancor. Buckley is there almost daily, but he doesn’t own it.
“They can accuse me of corruption,” Buckley said. “I haven’t taken one penny from the Market House, right?”
Market House is run by three partners: Michele Bouchard, Joe Lyon and Jody Danek. Buckley is Danek’s partner in other restaurants, and he recruited Bouchard and Lyon to bid for it.
Their lease ends in 2033, and they want a new agreement that would extend it an additional 20 years through a series of five-year renewals.
It would change some terms, upping the rent in exchange for lowering the profit share with the city. Buckley said he’ll abstain this time, too.
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“If there’s a chance to have a 20-year lease or a 30-year lease so that we have some security, we would love to have that,” Danek said. “That will give us the chance to recoup some of our initial investment and ongoing investment.”
When the partners won Market House in 2018, the outgoing company ripped out everything to the walls. The partners invested $500,000, survived the coronavirus pandemic and cleaned up after dozens of floods.
Critics focus on the partnership’s failure to pay the city its share of the profits in the lease’s first few years.
“The lease holder, which is New Market LLC, had been in default on several commitments from the original lease,” Kardash said. “Whether or not those issues have been cured is anyone’s guess.”
Bouchard said there wasn’t any profit for the first years, or during the pandemic, so there was no “performance rent” to pay. When they crossed the 2% threshold, no one noticed until someone did.
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“We paid it back,” Danek said. “And we’ve been paying it ever since.”
Political opponents want to wait until Buckley is out of office. Maybe someone else, they suggest, should run the venue now that it’s finally a success.
“I think the City Council should definitely consider what the past administration did to make it so that Mayor Buckley and his partners were able to get the Market House,” said Bob O’Shea, the Republican candidate for mayor.
“When Mike Pantelides was the mayor, he had an opportunity potentially to extend a lease. He didn’t.”
Except Buckley didn’t get the Market House lease, and the backhanded suggestion of corruption was the vibe in the room Monday.
“I can see where there’s not much love in this room for the person sitting in the mayor’s chair right there,” said Harrison, the operations manager. “No. 1, he’s not my boss.”
Buckley changed Annapolis and is still pursuing the big City Dock remake and a maritime welcome center. He wants to get them to the point where there is no turning back.
Critics of the Market House assume Danek must be in cahoots with the outgoing mayor, somehow. Not being able to prove that never seems to be a restraint.
There will be committee deliberations and public hearings on this lease. Maybe the posse of critics will finally catch up with Buckley.
I doubt it.
This has always been about the mayor, never the Market House.
“There’s no doubt about that,” Danek said. “In a couple more months, he won’t be in office, and we’ll all be getting back to work.”
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