Today, U.S. Senator Benjamin Cardin invited me to testify before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works to talk about the Edward A. Garmatz Courthouse, which is located in Downtown Baltimore. I am grateful to have been offered the opportunity to speak about the City's need for a new federal courthouse building, as well as the role that the courthouse plays in Baltimore's economic development plans. I also appreciate that the Committee held this field hearing in the city, so members have an opportunity to both see and hear what is happening on the ground, outside the confines of Washington.

Baltimore wants and deserves a first-class federal courthouse. The Courthouse is the center of Baltimore's prominent legal community and the City is where both of the State's law schools are located. The Federal Judiciary in Baltimore has a long tradition in U.S. Admiralty Law, stemming from the Port of Baltimore's centuries-old role as an international import and export hub for the nation. Plans for construction of a new courthouse are moving slowly, and major improvements needed for safety, security, energy savings, and infrastructure have been neither executed nor planned.

The Garmatz Courthouse was built decades before any of the modern safety and security design standards for federal buildings were established. Additionally, infrastructure in the present courthouse is failing. Judges, marshals, lawyers, and support staff are forced to work in a precarious environment with frequent plumbing mishaps, electrical failures, and a lack of access to technological improvements.

Millions of commuters, residents, and tourists walk past this building every year. What they walk past now is this building's unwelcoming and anonymous Pratt Street façade. Most people passing by will hardly notice the entry-less "back" of the building facing Pratt Street, one of the City's busiest streets. Nor will they wonder who owns the building, what work goes on inside, or what purpose it serves. The awkward alignment of the building makes it easy to overlook the solitary statue on the Pratt Street lawn that honors Baltimore's native son and one of our nation's greatest legal minds, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.
 

Not long ago, I convened the Downtown Task Force, and just recently I issued a report that outlines strategies to strengthen Baltimore's downtown. The vision that the task force laid out was for Downtown to become an ever-evolving mixed use neighborhood, which would include business, a diverse population of residents, hotels, thriving retail and restaurants, and expanding anchor institutions. There would be no greater anchor institution than a new federal courthouse.
 

The current courthouse is located in a gateway to the West side redevelopment. A development project known as the Superblock is planned just a few blocks away. I am committed to see the realization of the Westside and the Superblock and all of the benefits that they will offer our City.