Baltimore Grows

After years of disinvestment and urban flight, East Baltimore is starting to show signs of life.   Much of the the development is largely thanks to massive investments by Johns Hopkins Hospital.  The area around Hopkins Hospital, with all of the construction and tower cranes, likens itself more to Dubai than the East Baltimore we’ve known for a long while.  While not talked about nearly as much as development around the harbor, the changes going on in East Baltimore are probably more vital and important to Baltimore’s future than the addition of another condo or hotel downtown…bringing high paying jobs and catalysts for future development.  While Hopkins is the main impetus behind the development, there are other projects in the works as well.

A view of the Johns Hopkins Hospital campus shows the skyline dotted with tower cranes.  There are currently four projects under construction on the Hopkins medical campus, including the $950 million dollar double clinical patient tower (Adult Cardiovascular and Critical Care Tower and Children’s Tower) scheduled to be completed in 2011.  Other projects under construction are the Wilmer Eye Institute and the Hackerman-Patz Patient and Family Pavilion.  A new building for the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing is in planning stages.

Above, the East Baltimore Biotech park is well underway with the first phases opening up soon.  Swaths of run down row houses north of the Johns Hopkins Medical Campus were demolished to make way for this ambitious $200 million dollar project which will also include some residential and retail around the 22 acre biotech park.  A rendering shows the final product.

Above, another photo of the $950 million dollar double clinical patient tower (Adult Cardiovascular and Critical Care Tower and Children’s Tower).  This is one of the largest hospital construction projects in the country and the largest in the history of Maryland.

Humanium, a Columbia Md non-profit, has recently secured $22.5 million for renovations of the American Brewery Complex into their new headquarters.  Baltimore city recently approved the building permit and work is beginning.  The American Brewery is situated in the center of one of East Baltimore’s most blighted neighborhoods.

Local developers Kenneth R. Banks and Martin P. Azola acquired the former Hendler Creamery ice cream factory, at 1100 E. Baltimore St., in July 2006, after four years of negotiations with the city. 

The sale of the adjacent warehouse on Fayette Street to Banks, Azola and new partner LaRian Finney completes a deal that is expected to add about 50,000 square feet of mixed-use office and retail space to the historic Jonestown neighborhood of East Baltimore.

Azola said tenants are expected to include The Daily Record, which would house a new printing facility in the warehouse, and Finney’s multimedia marketing and event-planning company, Visionary Marketing Group.

Wire mesh fence was recently erected around the blighted Somerset Courts Public Housing Project, signaling its impending doom to the wrecking ball.  There’s no word what could replace Somerset Courts.  Other housing projects in the area have been replaced with mixed-income communities.  Somerset Courts is near Oldtown mall, which Baltimore City has been attempting to redevelop for years.  Past plans to build a Safeway at Oldtown mall have fallen through.  However, Baltimore City issued an RFP for Oldtown mall redevelopment earlier this year.

There have been setbacks.  Prior plans to construct a 1.96 million square foot mixed use project south of the Johns Hopkins Medical campus have fallen through.  The site is currently for sale.

jeffcantonite@yahoo.com