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Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Fredrick Avenue: Meet Your Uplands

Fredrick Avenue plays host to several different housing types from Single Family to Multi Family Homes, from Rental Complexes to blocks of solid Home Ownership. Just above Fredrick Avenue is Edmondson Avenue. Both roads and neighboring Communities have their shares of challenges and assets. Through the demolition of Uplands, the West Baltimore MARC Redevelopment, the Red Line, and quite possibly the redevelopment of the Road to Nowhere Edmondson Avenue will be a highly sought after destination. Now where does that leave Fredrick Avenue?The boldest initiative on Edmondson Avenue is the redevelopment of Uplands, once a crime ridden Public Housing Development that has been demolished to make way for close to 1500 new mixed income units that will usher in gentrification for Edmondson Village, Rognel Heights, and Allendale to with an increase in Home Ownership which long time residents are watching slip away. Neighborhoods like West Hills, Ten Hills, and Hunting Ridge will be as sought after as Roland Park and Guilford but with a better price tag.
Now what will the redevelopment of Uplands do for Fredrick Avenue? Not much if anything. But I'm not giving up on Fredrick Avenue that easily. No I'm not going to change Uplands so it somehow focuses itself on Fredrick Avenue instead of Edmondson. I'm going to take a look at Fredrick Avenue and the Communities served by it and give Fredrick Avenue its own "Uplands." The portion of Fredrick Avenue I will focus on will be west of Caton Avenue. It will include the neighborhoods of Westgate, Tremont, Irvington, Beechfield, Yale Heights, and Ten Hills.
The first Uplands of Fredrick Avenue will encompass Jamestown, Carriage House Apartments, North Bend Elementary and West Baltimore Middle. Like Uplands, the aforementioned properties and Schools will be demolished in favor of mixed income housing with a diverse range of options. The upper of end of North Bend and Rock Glen Roads will be "Maisonette" Duplexes that look the surrounding single family homes in the area.The middle part of the new neighborhood will be town homes. It will be where the Schools are now. It will be integrated with Town Homes off of Fredrick Avenue between North Bend and Rock Glen Roads.
The final part of the North Bend/Rock Glen section of the Fredrick Avenue Uplands will be three to four story Multi Family enclosed elevator Apartments/Condos with underground parking. This will be closest to Fredrick Avenue with Buildings facing it. Fredrick Avenue will be enhanced with a landscaped median, additional lighting, new traffic signals, and like all the roads will be repaved and the sidewalks re-cemented. This new Community will be called "Rock Glen Landing."The next part of the Fredrick Avenue Uplands will be in Beechfield. It will encompass Beechfield Elementary/Middle, Coventry Manor and the Coral Gardens Apartments and Town Homes which straddles Beechfield and Yale Heights. Closest to Fredrick Avenue where Beechfield Elementary/Middle sits and directly behind (Coral Gardens Apartments on Parkton Road)
will be the same enclosed elevator multi family apartment/condo buildings like those in "Rock Glen Landing."Coral Gardens Apartments (along Colleen Road) and Coventry Manor Apartments (not pictured) will be town homes. Some of Coventry Manor will be "Mansions" which look like large single family homes bit house four dwellings.Coral Gardens Town Homes will be redeveloped as Town Homes with a 100% Home Ownership Rate. The Beechfield/Yale Heights section of the Fredrick Avenue Uplands will be called "Beechfield Pointe."Next stop lands us in Irvington and Tremont. The Woodington West Apartments will be redeveloped as town homes known as Irvington Crossing.
The Hinting Hills Apartments in Tremont will also be redeveloped as Town Homes.
The four way intersection of Uplands Parkway, Pen Lucy Road, and Beechfield Avenue will be converted into a five way intersection with a roundabout extending Uplands Parkway to Fredrick Avenue. This will usher in new development connecting Tremont to Irvington. This will also be town homes named "Irvington Overlook." Fredrick Avenue itself is a mix of row homes and undeveloped land. I've proposed Multi Family Apartments/Condos along the undeveloped portions. This may be good to tie all the new development together. The condition of the existing row homes vary. Some will be redeveloped while others won't. Now I'm sure you're wondering how I came up with a broad mix of housing types for the redevelopment of Fredrick Avenue. Well, as the name of the post suggests; I got it from the Uplands Master Plan. So Fredrick Avenue; Meet Your Uplands!

7 comments:

Baltimore Dating said...

Great Pics and article about Fredrick Avenue and Edmondson Avenue.

swimwear for women said...

this is so elegant to see baltimore in these pictures and very nice info about it.........

Anonymous said...

hi spence,
i enjoy reading about baltimore's past.i think you do a wonderful job informing the people. i've been researching my ancestry. my ancestors lived at #15 dorsey's land from about 1880-1920. it was a thriving community of african americans. whatever happened to those houses and where exactly were they located? i wd appreciate any information you can provide.
helenagent30@comcast.net

Anonymous said...

i grew up in Jamestowne, went to school at Beechfield. Do you mean that Jamestowne is going to be demolished?
You did a great job with pics and story. thanks.
denise

Spence Lean said...

I know somebody who has worked in both Jamestown and Wildwood Gardens in Edmondson Village as a maintenance engineer. Both complexes are owned by the same company and both are crime ridden and the buildings are broken down and Management will not spend the money for upkeep. There has been talk among local Management for both complexes of a tear down of both Jamestown and Wildwood Gardens in the not so distant future.

Seattle Dating said...

I really like the rreading about baltimore's and see the pics here.It is good.

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