State Center: An extremely ugly unicorn?

Adam Bednar//May 29, 2019//

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The canceled $1.5 billion State Center project is a unicorn. An extremely ugly unicorn.

Michael Edney, a partner at Norton Rose Fulbright, representing developer State Center LLC, and retired Judge Dennis Sweeney agreed Wednesday that an unattractive mythical horse made a good metaphor for the dilapidated state office complex in Baltimore.

“The State Center project is a bit of a unicorn,” Edney said during a motions hearing on executive privilege claims in Baltimore City Circuit Court.

Sweeney, sitting with his chin propped in his bent right hand supported by an elbow, quipped: “A very ugly unicorn.”

Edney agreed it certainly wasn’t akin to the mythical horned horse he’d painted on his daughter’s bedroom wall.

“The stuff of nightmares, not dreams,” he said.