The fate of a nearly $1 billion plan to reimagine Baltimore's downtown waterfront now rests in the hands of judges.

Just a few weeks ago, Baltimore leaders and a small but vocal segment of city residents were preparing to square off on the November ballot over a voter referendum that was set to either green light or block the redevelopment of Harborplace.

Then Thiru Vignarajah got involved.

Opponents of the Harborplace redevelopment, represented by the attorney and perennial candidate for elected office, mounted a late-stage legal challenge to the wording of the ballot measure, which can be read in its entirety here. What first looked like a Hail Mary to sink the plans to transform the Inner Harbor now threatens to upend the ambitions of just about every elected leader from the City Council up to Gov. Wes Moore.

The group succeeded in their initial challenge, rendering the Harborplace ballot question moot. Attorneys for the city and the opposition group will argue their cases again Wednesday before the Supreme Court of Maryland.

How the high court responds could determine the shape of Baltimore's downtown skyline for years to come.

How did we get here?

More than a year's worth of planning and promotion by city leaders were dashed last month when an Anne Arundel County Circuit Court judge sided with anti-redevelopment petitioners. The court decision nullified a question placed on the ballot by the City Council, a top priority for City Hall.

The redevelopment has been a long time coming. Baltimore developer MCB Real Estate first received court approval to acquire the declining, decades-old Harborplace pavilions out of receivership in late 2022. City and state leadership quickly rallied around the developer's vision, assembling alongside MCB head P. David Bramble a year ago to unveil his designs, which showcased new commercial spaces, a sweeping building known as "the Sail," a hypothetical gondola and — most controversially — two high-rise apartment buildings along the Light Street side of the harbor.

The City Council moved quickly to amend zoning requirements and make way for Bramble's project.

But for the $900 million redevelopment to happen, one final step — changes to the city charter to allow the construction of apartment towers on the waterfront — must go to voters.

That will happen on Nov. 5. But whether the vote will matter is up to the state Supreme Court.

Why are some residents trying to block the redevelopment?

It depends on who you ask. The petitioners — there are less than two-dozen of them — say the development plan is an attempt at destroying Baltimore's central gathering spot and the product of a shady, politically motivated backroom deal. What's wrong with the current Harborplace, they ask? And why does Baltimore need more luxury high-rise buildings along the water? One architect worries the plan could turn Baltimore into "Dallas on the Chesapeake."

"This was a specific permitting-slash-zoning decision meant to benefit a particular developer for a particular project on a particular piece of land in a particular neighborhood," Vignarajah said last month, after winning in court.

Mayor Brandon Scott views it differently. The mayor argued after last month's ruling that residents who went to court represent a segment of predominantly white, affluent Baltimore, and, he said, they oppose the project because Bramble, the lead developer, is Black.

"A certain section of the city got mad," Scott said.

So this is going to be on the ballot, but it might not count?

Weird, right? But, if the state Supreme Court upholds the recent decision, that's exactly what will happen. Because ballots had already been finalized, Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Cathleen Vitale couldn't strike the question completely but said the votes won't be certified. In other words, the votes just won't count.

Councilman Eric Costello, whose district includes the Inner Harbor, called the ruling an "outrage" and an "affront" to Baltimore's sovereignty, and argued that the outcome amounts to "voter suppression."

"Either the provision can be on the ballot, or it cannot," he said.

State election officials have contended that, while the Harborplace measure remains in limbo for now, many mail-in ballot voters might skip the question entirely, thinking it no longer mattered in light of news headlines about a blocked ballot question — an outcome the state said threatened to disenfranchise those voters.

Vignarajah, meanwhile, has argued that the lateness of the court fight is the city and elections officials' own fault.

His group only filed their legal challenge in early September because of the city Law Department's and the Maryland State Board of Elections' "dilatory pace and inaction" when it came to publicizing the finalized wording of the Harborplace ballot question (one of the petitioners requested the language numerous times in July but was ignored or denied, writes Vignarajah, while a reporter told WYPR on Aug. 20 that she too had been unable to get the language from the state).

Is this just Thiru being Thiru again?

Yes. But that doesn't mean he will be unsuccessful, like he has every time he's run for office. The reason this is even in court is because Vignarajah and his supporters were not able to gather enough signatures to introduce a competing ballot question that would have stopped Harborplace's redevelopment.

But now it is in court, and he is a talented legal mind — the city's own filings in the case say as much; he was the president of the Harvard Law Review and his arguments were obviously well-received by the lower court.

Vignarajah is putting forward two arguments — that the proposed ballot question is worded in a way that's impossible to understand, and that the measure is impermissible under the Maryland constitution.

Vitale agreed with Vignarajah, and said in court she couldn't figure out what area the question described even with the help of Google. The city's attorneys didn't call that dumb in their filings to the Supreme Court, but they might as well have.

"This [the question's] language is very precise and easily understandable to anyone who has a passing familiarity with Baltimore's Inner Harbor (which includes Baltimore residents), or who has ready access to a map, or even a phone with a mapping application," city attorneys wrote, followed by a screenshot of the area from Google Maps.

The question is a bit dense in its language. But it is also the same descriptor of the lands used in the city charter. Vignarajah knows this, of course, but reached for his thesaurus to argue the question was written to be intentionally confusing, calling it "incoherent," "misleading," "word salad" and "gibberish."

City attorneys say the consternation over the wording is both a political trick and an exercise for the Ivy League graduate to show everyone how smart he is.

"Clever and ambitious lawyers can use their skill to make even the most straightforward language a mess," lawyers wrote to the Supreme Court. "This kind of sophistry is a curious intellectual party trick, but it has no bearing on whether Baltimore City voters will understand what is being asked of them when they cast their ballots," they added.

Vitale raised the idea in court that the existing Inner Harbor language in the charter may also be unconstitutional, and Vignarajah ... agreed?

"So, there's nothing that stops the developer from saying 'I want to challenge the Inner Harbor Park protection,'" Vignarajah told the judge. "And look, petitioners [his clients] are not gonna love this in the long run, but they're gonna, you know, you have to understand that this is a fight."

The Maryland Supreme Court is expected to rule expeditiously.