The group seeking to block a nearly $1 billion plan to redevelop Harborplace and Baltimore’s waterfront failed to meet a Monday deadline to qualify their initiative for November’s ballot.

Led by attorney and four-time candidate for citywide office Thiru Vignarajah, the petition drive got a late start in June and fell short of the 10,000 signatures it needed to qualify for the November ballot, according to Abigail Goldman, deputy director for the Baltimore City Board of Elections.

The petition group, which calls itself “Protect Our Parks,” aimed to counter a plan approved by the City Council that would clear the way for the redevelopment by allowing construction of residential buildings on the city-owned waterfront. Voters will get their say on that initiative in November.

Vignarajah did not respond to calls Monday about the status of his signature drive, and it wasn’t clear Monday afternoon how many total signatures his Protect Our Parks effort had collected. The attorney told reporters on Friday that his measure had reached 7,500 signatures in six weeks and planned to put in a final push over the weekend.

The group faced a 4:30 PM deadline on Monday.

Petition campaigns typically try to collect thousands of extra signatures on the assumption that many will be invalid, and Vignarajah had conceded from the start that reaching 10,000 on such a short timeline would require a “Herculean” effort.

Baltimore leaders have already modified downtown zoning restrictions and the Inner Harbor’s urban renewal plan to make way for the redevelopment, headed by the firm MCB Real Estate. To move forward with its plans, MCB still needs voters to approve a change to the city charter to allow residential housing on the waterfront — an especially divisive feature of their redevelopment proposal.

MCB plans to demolish the 1970s-era shopping and dining pavilions of Harborplace and replace them with park space, several mixed-use commercial buildings and two high-rise residential towers totaling 900 units.

A spokesperson from MCB Real Estate declined to comment Monday on the counter measure coming up short.

In a statement, Jon Laria, chairman of the the campaign Baltimore for a New Harborplace in support of the redevelopment, welcomed the result and said Vignarajah’s measure failed despite “misleading” residents by pitching the measure as a broader effort to protect city parklands.

“Ironically, the MCB plan for Harborplace will add more public open space than exists today, for everyone to appreciate and enjoy,” Laria said. “We’ll be telling the true story as we promote the city-approved ballot question that will help bring Harborplace back to life.”

The charter amendment proposed by Protect Our Parks would ban residential development, buildings taller than 100 feet and other “private use inconsistent with the parks’ public nature” at the Inner Harbor as well as 19 other city parks — a broad mandate that Vignarajah made clear at a June news conference was specifically designed to block the Harborplace development.

Though Vignarajah was clear at the June news conference about the intent of his petition campaign, the Protect Our Parks website didn’t discuss the plans for Harborplace directly. A six-minute video on the site rolls overhead footage of the Inner Harbor alongside other parks around Baltimore, but only indirectly alludes to MCB’s redevelopment plans for Harborplace.

“This is forever public space that is going to go be dedicated for generations to come and protected from commercial development. It’s exactly what public park space is meant to be,” Vignarajah says in the video, where he provides a tutorial for petitioners on how to collect signatures. “It’s at risk today, and you can make sure that it’s protected forever.”

Some supporters of the redevelopment plan criticized the Protect Our Parks effort for what they characterize as a misleading campaign to collect signatures.

The bakery Crust by Mack, which currently operates out of one of the Harborplace pavilions and is signed for space in the revamped Harborplace, urged its nearly 50,000 followers on Instagram to do more research on the countermeasure, which the business said has been luring in signatures with “misinformation.”

“GET THE FACTS BEFORE YOU SIGN! THE PROTECT OUR PARKS PETITION AIMS TO BLOCK THE HARBORPLACE REDEVELOPMENT,” read a Sunday evening post from the bakery. “IT’S A NIMBY PETITION.”

Measures that do qualify for the ballot have historically received overwhelming support from Baltimore voters, giving the City Council’s charter amendment clearing way for the MCB redevelopment plan good odds this November.

The city law department has made clear, though, that if two conflicting ballot measures are approved by voters, both will be thrown out.

Baltimore voters could face a raft of consequential questions on the November ballot. In addition to the proposal to redevelop Harborplace, voters could face a question about slashing membership of City Council. Whether two additional questions about halving Baltimore’s property tax rate and handing out $1,000 checks to new parents also make the ballot will be decided in court.

Several other petitions aside from Vignarajah’s had not submitted enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, according to Goldman with the city Board of Elections. One measure seeking to lay groundwork for a regional transportation authority had submitted more than 10,000 signatures but saw several thousand thrown out, while another measure aimed at forcing local tax-exempt institutions pay more to the city had not submitted any signatures.