The Chamber of Commerce Building is a historic

office building An office is a space where an organization's employees perform administrative work in order to support and realize objects and goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific dut ...

located at

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. It is a

Renaissance Revival Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th century architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range o ...

-style of architecture with a brown glazed brick building five floors in height, eleven bays long on the west/east sides, facing Commerce Street on the west and Custom House Avenue to the east. Three bays wide (north/south) on the Water Street side, and rebuilt 1904–1905, using still standing walls / facades. It was built during the rebuilding of the old financial district in

Downtown Baltimore Downtown Baltimore is the central business district of the city of Baltimore traditionally bounded by Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard to the west, Franklin Street to the north, President Street to the east and the Inner Harbor area to the s ...

following the

Great Baltimore Fire The Great Baltimore Fire raged in Baltimore, Maryland from Sunday, February 7, to Monday, February 8, 1904. More than 1,500 buildings were completely leveled, and some 1,000 severely damaged, bringing property loss from the disaster to an estimate ...

of Sunday/Monday, February 7–8, 1904 (third worst conflagration to ever hit an American city) and features many

terra cotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...

decorative elements. The rebuilt structure was designed by well-known Baltimore architect Charles E. Cassell. The original pre-fire building was designed by locally famous and prominent architect

John Rudolph Niernsee John Rudolph Niernsee (May 27, 1814 – June 7, 1885) was an American architect. He served as the head architect for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B. & O.). Rudolph also largely contributed to the design and construction of the South Carolin ...

in 1880 and was used by the old Corn and Flour Exchange, which maintained a trading floor on the fifth level. It was later occupied during the 1990s by the Baltimore International Culinary College (later renamed the Baltimore International College) as one of their utilized buildings on an urban campus of nearby city blocks and later taken over by

Stratford University Stratford University was a private university based in Virginia. On September 26, 2022, it announced it would close, including both the campus-based and online components, at the end of the Fall 2022 semester. Founded in 1976, Stratford delivers ...

, a for-profit educational institution. Currently it has been renovated to function as a

Staybridge Suites Staybridge Suites is an all-suite, residential-style brand of hotels within the InterContinental Hotels Group. The hotels are primarily targeted toward extended-stay and corporate travelers. Over 220 Staybridge Suites hotels are in the Unite ...

- Baltimore Inner Harbor Hotel. Chamber of Commerce Building was listed in 1983 on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

, maintained by the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...

of the

U.S. Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the mana ...

References

External links

*, including photo from 1983, at Maryland Historical Trust Buildings and structures in Baltimore Commercial buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Baltimore Commercial buildings completed in 1905 Downtown Baltimore 1905 establishments in Maryland Baltimore City Landmarks {{BaltimoreCityMD-NRHP-stub