Highway Construction: Undermining Transit Iniatives

All Photos From Google Earth

Here we are paying upwards of $3.50 per gallon of gas with it projected to hit $4.00 per gallon in the summer and here we are continuing to commute by car in record numbers and highway construction will only add more cars, more traffic and ultimately more traffic jams which decreases gas mileage and wastes still more gas making the greedy oil companies raise the price of gas even higher. There has been a movement to use public transportation in the Baltimore area but the transit system is lack luster at best and will continue to be so until at least 2035. What will it take to ear mark highway construction funds to pay for transit instead? $10 per gallon? It's not that far fetched.

Most of the highway construction funds are to be used around Baltimore City rather than it which further encourages suburban sprawl. There has also been a recent movement to move back into cities especially young single adults and empty nesters. They, along with college students are the most likely to use transit. The worst part of it is every highway construction project takes away the likelihood of transit lines being built. Don't believe me? Well here's a list of construction projects in and around Baltimore that will take away funds and ridership for transit lines.

$1 Billion+ I-95 Travel Lanes/I-695 interchange Green and Purple Lines

I-695 southwest side widening Orange and Yellow Lines

I-170 Red Line

Boston Street Widening Red Line

Orleans Street Widening Green Line

Northern Parkway/JFX Interchange Improvements Blue Line and Charles St. Trolley Line

I-795 Expansion into Carroll County Green Line Expansion into Carroll County. Although I-795 would go north to Hampstead and the Green Line would go to Westminster you can't fund them both. The Green Line hasn't been extended to I-795's northern Terminus.

White Marsh Boulevard Extension Green and Purple Lines

MLK Boulevard/JFX Interchange Blue and Green Lines

I-70/I-695 Interchange Improvements Red Line

Pratt Street Two Way Conversion Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, and Charles St. Trolley Line

BW Parkway/Russell Street Widening and Reconstruction Blue Yellow and Orange Lines

Dolfield Boulevard/I795 Interchange Green Line

Reisterstown Road/Owings Mills Boulevard Interchange Green Line

A Cherry Hill Divided Will Not Stand

My Own Pictures are Coming Soon
Photo From Developer Website

It was honest Abe some 145 odd years ago who said "A House Divided Will Not Stand." This was during the Civil War years that President Lincoln made this speech but the words still apply today in Baltimore and the entire country. Right now I will apply it to Cherry Hill which may be on the forefront if its own civil war.

Photo From Cherry Hill Master Plan

Cherry Hill differs from other Baltimore in that its history is rather short.The Bulk it was a product of FDRs' "New Deal" to stimulate the economy during the great depression. It was meant to be housing for black World War II veterans returning home. Uplands was its white counterpart. Cherry Hill was built in a time where housing segregation was still the norm. It was one of the last pieces of undeveloped waterfront land in Baltimore located between Westport and Brooklyn it contained some industrial land. After living the life of housing for Veterans the 600 unit Cherry Hill Homes became public housing. Cherry Hill Homes kept expanding over the years topping out at 1713 units. Obviously, Cherry Hill Homes was and is the dominant development creating huge pockets of poverty.

Photo From Baltimore Housing.org

Cherry Hill didn't enjoy a long period of success as a thriving neighborhood. Crime, drugs, vacancies, population loss, and public health concerns over toke the quality life in Cherry Hill. Cherry Hill Homes began a "modernization" process in the 1990s which included the demolition of 193 units bringing the new total of units to 1520. Some new affordable home ownership town homes were built but for the most part, the land that the public housing units remained vacant. Quality of life in Cherry Hill remained low in Cherry Hill despite the notable success of a few residents, the revitalization of Cherry Hill Town Center, 2 aquatic centers, Cherry Hill Park, Middle Branch Park, Reedbird Park, a youth recreation center, a light rail stop, a branch of an Enoch Pratt Library, and 2 medical centers in addition to Harbor Hospital. Cherry Hill might have the most amenities of any neighborhood in Baltimore. In late 2006 an additional 126 units of Cherry Hill Homes were demolished bringing the grand total down to 1394.

Photo From Cherry Master Plan

Today Cherry Hill is a divided community. There is a market push to develop land as upscale apartments, condos, retail, offices, and possibly a boutique hotel seeing as it is a waterfront community. However, crime, gangs, drugs, still persist at disturbing levels. There have been 12 murders in Cherry Hill in the past year. Still the push is on for market rate housing; Waterview Overlook, a brand new upscale town house/condo development is being built in Cherry Hill and it sold out before they laid the first brick! There is also a waiting list in case people change their mind!

Photo From Cherry Hill Master Plan

The perfect analogy for the divided Cherry Hill would be the former Arnett J. Brown Jr. Middle School building. It is now home to two high schools New Era Academy and Southside Academy. New Era Academy is the perfect name for the school too because it represents the soon to be influx of new residents a "new era" if you will. New Era Academy also draws citywide and is for college bound students. In sharp contrast Southside Acdemy students are more local and are much more troubled than their fellow New Era tenants. This has erupted in violence between the two schools in at least one instance the schools were put on lock down.

Photo From Developer Website

Now here comes the tricky part; unifying the divided Cherry Hill. Ok lets start with the buildable parcels of land already available. Waterview Overlook is already being built so we can omit that. There is the industrial land next to the light rail station, there is the wooded undeveloped land next to the light rail station, there is the industrial land between Westport and Cherry Hill and finally there is the vacant land left over from the 319 units of Cherry Hill Homes that were demolished in the 1990s and 2006. To deal with the deep concentration of poverty in Cherry Hill I propose using both conventional and unconventional methods. The conventional method would be more demolition in Cherry Hill Homes, 697 units to be exact which is half of the current 1394. Now I'm projecting about 250 of those 697 units are vacant so the number of displaced families isn't as alarming as one would originally think. The demolished units would be redeveloped as mixed use mixed income housing, retail, and offices.

Photo From Cherry Hill Master Plan

Now the unconventional method; the units preserved in Cherry Hill Homes will be the original 600 (or however many of them are still standing) built before World War II. There has been an interest in reusing pre war public housing as market rate housing, something Baltimore hasn't done so I'm proposing that this be done with the oldest Cherry Hill Homes units however many of them are still standing. They were modernized in semi recent years so they would in fact be "de modernized" to restore them to their original appearance to qualify for historic designation. Now where would the remaining 697 families from the old Cherry Hill Homes Go? The only remaining units will be sold as market rate condos! Well they will be in scattered sites throughout Cherry Hill which will now be solely new homes, offices, and businesses.

Photo From Cherry Hill Master Plan

When President Lincoln said "A House Divided Will Not Stand" could he have been thinking of Cherry Hill?

Reservoir Hill:Could We Be Sitting on Real Estate Gold?

Reservoir Hill or Lake Drive as it was originally called was once considered a suburb to Downtown Baltimore and was home to Eastern European Jews who made it big. It also was and still is to some extent home to some of Baltimore's best row house architecture. Its proximity to Druid Hill Park and Eutaw Place (Bolton Hill) made a destination from the cramped over crowded neighborhoods of Old East Baltimore where the poorer Jews were still living. In addition to row houses some Reservoir Hill residents fancied the luxury of apartment living. Like the row houses, apartment buildings were also architectural gems. Although Reservoir Hill was an upscale neighborhood in its own right, it always played second fiddle to its neighbor to the south; Bolton Hill.

The story of Reservoir Hill after World War II is one that I've told many on this blog in different variations but I keep telling it because it has so much significance in Baltimore and urban America as a whole. Since the homes in Reservoir Hill are so large in size many divided into apartments to deal with over crowding. Since it wasn't too far from the black neighborhoods Reservoir Hill became majority black almost overnight. There was little to no evidence of block busting tactics here but I'm sure it was used by block busters as an example of how fast a neighborhood could change.

The flight to the suburbs was on in full force in the 1960s and 70s. It seemed as though urban America had become nothing but slums for the poor. Reservoir Hill had become one of those places with a sizable chunk of its housig stock being devoted to low income families. It was at this that Lakeview Towers and Extension was built. These were two public housing high rises located between Reservoir Hill and Druid Hill Park. Speaking of Druid Hill Park, it had been completely sealed off on all sides by high speed parkways and interstates. By the 1980s the blows of being an inner city neighborhood had taken their toll on Reservoir Hill. Population loss, trash in the streets, vacant boarded up homes, and a high crime rate had taken over this once grand upscale neighborhood.

Today Reservoir Hill is in transition. Revitalization efforts have come in fits and spurts with varying levels of success. Homesteaders have lovingly restored blighted houses to their original elegance making homes that were multi family single family once again. The real esate boom of the early 2000s have made prices in Reservoir Hill shoot up sky high only to have that back fire by the real estate slump we're currently in. One reason Reservoir Hill hasn't gentrified the way citizens and elected officials have hoped is because it was done backwards. Usually a big development or redevelopment project will occur first and then spur homesteaders. Another reason is because so much of Reservoir Hill's housing stock is federally subsidized and it has to stay that way for a certain number of years, a roadblock for a mixed income community. There has however been news on the development front for Reservoir Hill.

Vistas on the Lake" a new condo development taking advantage of the views of Druid Hill Park is being proposed by the same developer of "Waterview Overlook" in Cherry Hill. Remember when I talked about how grand it was to have an apartment in Reservoir Hill? Well I'd like to recapture that in a couple ways first demolishing Lakeview Towers and Extension and redeveloping it as a mixed use mixed income community. Second I will take the old once grand apartment buildings and rehab them into upscale condos and/or apartments complete with valet services, concierge, doorman, business center, and 24 hour on site maintenance. With big developments projects I'm proposing in addition to the already proposed "Vistas on the Lake" row house homesteading will be much more successful. Another problem with Reservoir Hill is its accessibility to its neighbors Druid Hill Park and Bolton Hill. Druid Park Lake Drive current separates Reservoir Hill from Druid Hill Park and is currently 10 lanes. I would have it narrowed down to 4 lanes to create room for a sidewalk and a lane designed for bikes. I would narrow North Avenue which separates Reservoir Hill from Bolton Hill and rebuild the homes destroyed to widen it further integrating the two neighborhoods together. Lastly I would widen Eutaw Place in reservoir Hill to expand the beautiful green landscaped median in Bolton Hill and turn it to two way traffic.

Now the initial question I posed was: Reservoir Hill Could We Be Sitting on Real Estate Gold? Short Answer Yes and you just read the long one.

Waverly: Still Yellow After All These Years

Yellow, in traffic it means slow down, prepare to stop or use caution conditions ahead maybe be hazardous. The cluster of neighborhoods I will describe all will focus on the same theme: the color yellow and the traffic signal analogy.

The title of the post can be deceiving it says they're waiting to turn yellow but they already are. The current conditions for someone who lives there or is visiting would have to use caution as there maybe hazardous conditions ahead. Waverly lies east of Greenmount Avenue north of Downtown and are a mix of row houses, lack luster retail, blighted industrial uses, surface parking lots and vacant under utilized land.

The color yellow wasn't always so closely associated with the greater Waverly area. It used to be "Green" as in all systems go full speed ahead. The communities grew as farming villages along the York Road just north of the city line. Rich businessmen built their weekend and summer estates along here as well. In the mid to late 1800s the greater Waverly area was annexed by the city and the neighborhoods were developed with row house and light industry throughout. By the mid 20th century the color yellow was being introduced into the cluster of neighborhoods. Overcrowding, blight, and white flight in East Baltimore Midway was occurring. Rather than turning "red" and turning the neighborhoods into crime infested ghettos by building public housing high rises the city did something a little different.

They rehabbed targeted blocks mostly along Grennmount Avenue and other main neighborhood streets and located the new Stadium for the Orioles on 33rd just east of Waverly in the Ednor Gardens neighborhood dubbed "Memorial Stadium." Memorial Stadium was a great boost to the neighborhoods surrounding it making them "Green" as in full speed ahead all systems go. East Baltimore Midway was still struggling but everything else was in good shape. Waverly and Ednor Gardens had become one of Baltimore's most culturally and economically diverse neighborhoods at a time when that wasn't the norm. Memorial Stadium carried Wavelry and Ednor Gardens into the 1980s when decline finally set in the neighborhoods began to turn "Yellow". Population loss and vacant boarded up houses were showing up. Even Memorial Stadium, the area's driving force was beginning to age and with the Inner Harbor revitalization its location seemed out of the way. The 1991 baseball season was the Os last at Memorial Stadium and next year they moved into their brand new home dubbed "Oriole Park at Camden Yards" which became a model for building new stadiums. It's also Downtown and a few blocks from the Inner Harbor and Light Rail.

Conditions in East Baltimore Midway only worsened and it was spreading like wildfire into Waverly. Conditions had turned "red" as in stop! Memorial Stadium stood vacant, a shell of its former self for several years until Baltimore acquired itself an NFL team dubbed the Ravens (formerly the Cleveland Browns) used it as a temporary stadium until MT&T Bank Stadium was built for them Downtown adjacent to Camden Yards. The stadium was almost completely demolished in 2001 with the the exception of the Memorial that bared its name. One would think that this would worsen conditions in the Waverly/Lakeside area but then the community fought back.Crime still persists but there is an underlying community spirit that won't be shaken. Waverly/Lakeside has emerged as a culturally and economically diverse section of the city with residents old and new. There has been plenty of development since the demolition of Memorial Stadium. On the site a YMCA was built and senior housing. There is room for more development on the site that leaves room creativity. When Martin O'Malley was elected mayor of Baltimore in 1999 a promise of his was to attract quality supermarkets to the city. Waverly is now home to a brand new Giant. Also popular is the Waverly Farmers Market on Saturdays which has regional and local appeal. Conditions have moved from "red" to "yellow." East Baltimore Midway still remains "red" where investment hasn't picked up.

Now I come to a general conclusion and an explanation of the traffic signal analogies. I used traffic signals and mainly the color yellow as a theme to this post to introduce the Yellow Line of the Baltimore Regional Rail Plan. The Yellow Line has been ignored by the MTA as have many other transit initiatives but this time I'm focusing on the Yellow Line. The Yellow Line, built in full is supposed to go from Columbia Town Center to Hunt Valley where the current Blue Line ends. My version of the Yellow Line doesn't have it going to Columbia but running semi parallel to the MARC line at the Dorsey Station to Fort Meade for the expected influx of BRAC residents. The current Blue Line has two southern ends, one at BWI and the other at Glen Burnie. The Yellow Line would solve this it would use the Blue Line's route to BWI and the Blue Line would end at Glen Burnie. These portions of the Yellow Line aren't what would gentrify the neighborhoods discussed in this post. The biggest priority would be from Camden Yards to Towson. It would run under Calvert Street up to Penn Station and then Greenmount Avenue/York Road to Towson where it would meet the Blue Line. The amount of Transit Oriented Development in Barclay, East Baltimore Midway, and Waverly due to the construction of the Yellow Line is staggering. The Kirk Avenue bus facility can be turned into, with the 25th St. Yellow Line a Multi Modal Transit Hub for easy transfers to buses.

After the construction of the Yellow Line, East Baltimore Midway and Waverly would think of the color Yellow as most people think of the color Green as in "all systems go! Full speed ahead !

Public Housing: Let Me Set the Record Straight

Now public housing has always been somewhat of a hot button issue in Baltimore and every large city across the country and I would like to tell you where I stand on it. First of all I keep reading that's a waiting list to get in to public housing that's growing by the day. At the same time I hear that complexes continue to grow vacant. One could use the argument that beggars can't be choosers but that would be ignorant and wrong.Now why are complexes going vacant? It's not due to a decreasing number of qualified residents it's simply a matter of safety and the condition of the structures. Even with renovations in the 80s and 90s many complexes have fallen into a state of disrepair and residents are moving out and residents on waiting lists simply refuse to move in. Still it's not that simple there are some who would love to move in to the vacant run down complexes but the city is systematically emptying them out to demolish and rebuild them as new mixed income communities. If you've read my blog for any length of time you will know that I'm in favor of this and I'm against deep concentration of poverty that were the order of the day in the 1940s through the 1970s when the bulk of these complexes were built. I'm not against public housing in fact I think it's a necessity in breaking the cycle of poverty that's plagued Urban America for generations. Now how can government hand outs break the cycle of poverty you ask?Public housing in my opinion should be used a stepping stone. When you move into public housing your goal and the goal of the city should be to get you out quickly. In other words don't get too comfortable. Now how do we achieve this? When someone moves into public housing they will be assessed on their current situation and what it will take for them to be gainfully employed and no longer needing public housing. Now what all does this include? It includes free college education, job training, daycare, health and dental insurance (this can include drug rehab and counseling) and proper interview etiquette. Now that our public housing resident has become gainfully employed he/she can move out on their own and not need the assistance of public housing and the unit that's been vacated someone else can move in the whole process will start all over again. If the number of residents who need public housing dwindles the number of units allocated for public housing will go down as well. It almost sounds too easy right? This is just my Utopian ramblings that will never see the light of day.Now lets get back to the physical condition of the complexes. HOPE VI funding has dried up thanks in no small part to the war in Iraq so the city has stepped up the plate with redeveloping their blighted complexes. Uplands, O'Donnell Heights, Westport Homes Extension, 100 units of Cherry Hill Homes, and Somerset Homes either have or will hit the wrecking ball. There is talk of demolishing Douglass Homes and Perkins Homes. Other complexes that need redevelopment are LaTrobe Homes, Mount Winans Homes, Owsego Mall, and Poe Homes. Sure on paper the number of public housing units will go down but the vacancy rates in these complexes are so high that the number of functioning units once the redevelopment is complete won't be a whole lot lower than they are now. Not only that deep concentrations of poverty have been broken up and middle and upper income families will begin moving into once depressed neighborhoods.

Northern Parkway:Every Cloud Has a Silver Line

They say every cloud has a silver lining, that after every tragedy something good comes from it. Land on Northern Parkway west of I-83 is tragically underutilized but something good can come from it, redevelopment and a transit line; the Silver Line.

Northern Parkway was built in the earlier part of the 20th century before interstates to accommodate the automobile, the declining streetcars, and the increasingly suburban nature of north Baltimore. Today Northern Parkway is a four to six lane thoroughfare that runs east west from Belair Road to Liberty Heights Avenue. East of I-83 Northern Parkway isn't much of an issue, the neighborhoods although suburban are generally clean, relatively low crime and vacancy rates, and low poverty rates.

Now let me shift gears a little bit and talk about transit. I've spoken my opinions on the state of Baltimore's rail transit but I'm going talk right now as if everything in the Baltimore Regional Rail Plan was built already and exactly to my specifications granted hell will have frozen over and pigs will be flying but stay with me anyway. Many of the transit lines go through north Baltimore but they've got no connection within North Baltimore they all meet up Downtown. Suppose someone wants to stay in north Baltimore but wants to ride rail transit? That's where the new silver line comes in. It will allow north Baltimore region to ride rail transit without having to go Downtown if they don't want to.

The Silver line will be the only line that doesn't go Downtown but it will connect to other lines allowing for TOD and gentrification. The Silver Line will begin at Belair Road and then meet the Green Line Northern Parkway stop at Harford Road and will travel west along Northern Parkway and meet the Yellow Line at York Road and Belvedere Square. It will then meet Charles Street marking the northern terminus of the Charles St.Trolley Line. It will then meet the Blue Line at I-83 and continue west to meet the Green Line. My tweaking of the Green Line will have it meet Reisterstown Road and travel under it above Northern Parkway and then will turn westerly to run parallel to Northern Parkway and the Silver Line until it meets Wabash Avenue and the Green Line will turn south and run under Wabash Avenue which it currently runs above. After Wabash Avenue the Green and Silver Lines will no longer cross paths, Northern Parkway dead ends at Liberty Heights Avenue right after this. Now this is where things will get complicated because although Northern Parkway ends, the Silver Line still has a journey to complete. It will have a stop at Grove Park (The End of Northern Parkway) and then turn easterly to run under Liberty Heights Avenue. It will stop at Gwynn Oak Avenue at the newly redeveloped retail center that will replace Super Pride. It will continue on Liberty Heights until Garrison Boulevard where it have a stop and it will turn south and run under Garrison Boulevard. Garrison Boulevard ends at Clifton Avenue which will be a great place for a Walbrook Junction stop. It will run under Clifton Avenue for a New York Minute and then it will once again turn south and run under Hilton Parkway. The Silver Line will finally end once and for all at the red line's Rosemont. stop.

Now lets talk benefits of the Silver Line. West of I-83 Northern Parkway may eventually have a lot to offer. The road itself will be narrowed to 2 lanes in each direction with on street parking, sidewalks furniture plantings, additional lighting, and updated traffic signals. Mt. Washington basically turns it back on Northern Parkway with a thick forest separating the two. Well not anymore, new high density mixed use development with apartments, condos, and offices all with ground floor retail will replace the trees from I-83 to Reisterstown Road. Pimlico Middle, which closed last year will be torn and redeveloped in the process. Further down Northern Parkway the aging Seton Business Park will redeveloped as a high density 21st century office park. Across the street from the Seton Business Park is Grove Park and another large swath of trees. I bet you can't guess how I'd develop it huh? Well you're right another mixed use TOD development.

Once the Silver Line parts from Northern Parkway the benefits will be more limited because the neighborhoods aren't as blighted and land isn't available for development. One benefit may include better retail selections for residents like sit down restaurants and high quality grocery stores. Residents have been waiting many years for these services and haven't gotten them yet.

Now it has been said that every cloud has a silver lining but I don't think they were talking about rail transit and the development that follows. Now Here's your Silver Line.

Hotels:The Sign of a Great Economy or an Ailing One

I work in the hotel industry so I'm particularly excited about this. The 757 room Convention Center shows a huge commitment to the city of Baltimore and the belief that Baltimore's tourism economy will be viable for decades to come. It takes decades to make back the money one spends building and operating an upscale hotel so the owner of a hotel has to have great faith before committing such huge funds.

In addition to the convention center new hotel construction is drawing board for every big development project. The State Center Development, Westport, Canton Crossing, and the Westside of Downtown are slated to have an upscale hotel while two have already been built at Inner Harbor East. These are just new hotels this doesn't even account for the dozens of hotels that vary in age and amenities. With all this new hotel construction the new hotels will no doubt have features like Hi-Def TVs, WI-FI Internet access in all areas and over all more modern decor in sleeping rooms, conference rooms, banquet rooms, and restaurants. Will this mean that older hotels built from the 1980s and 1990s will lose business due to increased competition? Well they're not going down without a fight.

Many of Baltimore's upscale hotels are going through, have gone through or are slated to go through massive renovations. A general rule of thumb is that hotels need to be renovated every 5 years to keep current with market trends, technology, and decor. The cost of renovating a hotel with several hundred rooms, multiple restaurants, a couple dozen conference and banquet rooms is staggering. Hotels try to go as long as possible without renovating (I know from personal experience) but you can't delay the inevitable. The same projection that warrants the building a new hotel is used for renovating an existing one. You'll eventually make your money back. If these hotels didn't think Baltimore had the economy to support their hotels they wouldn't renovate and may even close but they're renovating mostly to the tune of eight figures.

If you read the paper and get depressed about all that's wrong with Baltimore such as a decaying housing stock, population loss, out of control murder rate, and a failing public school system just look at the construction and renovation of hotels to cheer yourself up because it speaks volume about Baltimore's economy and that thousands will travel here whether for business or pleasure.

Public vs. Private Investment: One Hand Washes the Other

What comes first? The Chicken or the Egg? This has been a question asked for centuries by every great philosopher. Every one can have a valid argument for each side. One can't find an answer. Keep in mind I'm not a great philosopher and I don't want to try to debunk the theory myself.Now we come to Baltimore,which has its own version of the chicken/egg argument. Public and private investment which comes first? There are many instances in the gentrification of Baltimore where one or the other has come first. The question still remains for neighborhoods that have yet to be gentrified, which will come first for Baltimore in the future, public or private dollars?As always lets first examine the past. Charles Center began with a group of Civic Leaders on the private sector headed by none other than James Rouse who formed the Greater Baltimore Committee. They came up with the Charles Center plan and presented it to the City. The City then paid for the acquisition and demolition of the buildings at the sight. Then the land was sold to developers who built the buildings known as Charles Center.

Next came the Inner Harbor, this started at the public sector with the promenade lining the waterfront, The Convention Center, the National Aquarium, and the Maryland Science Center. The first brick for the waterfront was barely laid when the private investment began pouring in. Rouse built the Harbor Place and the Gallery mixed use projects. The old Power Plant building was transformed into retail and hotels were being built by the dozens. Meanwhile on the residential side public investment began in the way of homesteading and the famous $1 row home in hopes of attracting private investors. It worked like a charm, after all this is Charm City and neighborhoods like Otterberin Federal Hill and Fels Point were transformed from gritty industrial wastelands to upscale rehabbed homes shops, boutiques, restaurants, and bars. Plans for Inner Harbor East were beginning to surface but that will be discussed later.While the Inner Harbor began thriving ever since the opening of Harbor Place many neighborhoods to the north west were not. One that stood out most was Sandtown Winchester. In 1987 upon Kurt L. Schmoke's election Sandtown was on the top of his agenda. The Enterprise Foundation and B.U.I.L.D., a charities that took interest in this distressed neighborhood were able to funnel $60 million in public and private dollars. They took a Comprehensive look at every thing in the neighborhood housing, education, employment, retail, crime, and health of the residents. Not surprisingly the whole neighborhood suffered from deep rooted problems in all departments. Some 21 years later the neighborhood has seen its share and successes and hardships which I will discuss in a post dedicated to it.

Then came the westside of Downtown. It didn't get the same renewal and attention that the Harbor and Central Business District did. It came at first in the form of Stadiums. First it was Oriole Park at Camden Yards then it was M&T Bank Stadium. Both were public/ private ventures where the government paid to have the sites and offered enormous tax breaks to the developers and owners of the teams. Although these were great additions to Downtown they didn't help the Westside that much. The Schmoke administration came up with the Westside Master Plan that involved tearing down almost every building in the district. Historic preservationists lobbied against this and the plan was scrapped. That didn't mean renewal didn't start on Baltimore's once thriving retail and shopping district it just came in the form of reusing existing historic buildings. I don't believe that the stadiums were the catalysts for change in the Westside. The renovation of Lexington Market and the Hippodrome Theatre brought in the big bucks to the Westside I believe. New development and investment of note on the private sector include the Stewarts Building, The Hecht Company Building, Centerpoint, Bank of America Superblock, and the Zenith. Public investment of note include the expansion of the University of Maryland Campus and the 757 Hilton Convention Center Hotel with a "Green" roof.

Another pet project of the Schmoke Administration was Inner Harbor East. The Inner Harbor East Urban Renewal Plan was set up before Schmoke took office as well as the purchasing of the land that would become Inner Harbor East by John Paterakis. The majority of the planning and financing on both the public and private sector happened during the Schmoke years. Most of the physical construction took place during the O'Malley years and will continue through the Dixon years. Inner Harbor East brought a hodgepodge of upscale restaurants and bars, a whole foods, two hotels of the Marriott brand, office space Legg Mason will be moving there, and apartments and condos like Spinnaker Bay, Inner Harbor Lofts, and The Promenade at Inner Harbor East to name a few.

Some projects were never meant to have private investment. The projects in question are HOPE VI. HOPE VI was the brain child of Maryland Senator Barbara Mukulski which ear marked federal grants for distressed public housing developments mainly high rises to be torn down and rebuilt as mixed income communities consisting mostly of town homes. The ink barely dried on the bill before Baltimore received grants for its distressed high rises. The finished products were for the most part a huge success albeit suburban in nature. When President George W. Bush took office HOPE VI funds were slashed almost to the point of no return. Baltimore then took the place of the feds and began tearing other distressed public housing developments and coming up with mixed income neighborhoods to take their place.

At the turn of the century Baltimore elected Martin O'Malley as their mayor. O'Malley brought a number of new ideas that used public funds to encourage private investment. First there were SNAP or Strateic Neighborhood Action Plans which took six clusters of neighborhoods mostly on the outer edges of the city. These clusters were in decent shape but were just starting to show signs of slipping. The SNAPS were publicly funded and used market forces and highlighted the neighborhood attributes to funnel in private dollars and eliminate blight that was just begining to appear. Another is Area Master Plans or AMPS AMPS were designed for neighborhoods that are more in the inner city and have suffered from blight, crime, and poor living conditions much worse and much longer than their SNAP counterparts. Much more intense intervention is needed to turn these neighborhoods around, mainly redevelopment and displacement. Another one which superceeds the two is porject 5000 in which the city aquires 5000 vacant properties and sells them to investors for $5,000. The investor must in turn spend an undetermined amount of money to rehab the property based on its condition and either live in or sell it to a home owner.

Now the year is 2008 and Baltimore's waterfront is on the verge of being built out. Canton transformed itself on its own with little outside help. That didn't stop Canton Crossing, a new mixed use development from being built. Now we come to Westport. Developer Patrick Turner will develop the vacant middle branch waterfront into yet another high density mixed use development. The difference between Canton Crossing and Westport is that Canton has already experienced a rebirth while Westport remains blighted. But if history is any indicator existing Westport will make a strong comeback after its waterfront's $2 Billion make over. Now we come to the Biotech Park. Johns Hopkins, Baltimore's largest employer has decided to build a biotech park in the blighted Middle East neighborhood just north of its hospital. Along with the Biotech Park 1200-1500 new and rehabbed mixed income homes are on tap for Middle East and its neighbors. Upon its completion all of East Baltimore will be transfromed and thriving. The majority of the money will come from private investment but the city will pay for the relocation of residents and te demolitin of the blighted units, yet another public/private partnership.So there you have it transformation can take place in all different ways. Mostly it starts with a little public investment and if all goes right a lot of private investment. It's true that one hand washes the other. (This was a long post and I know I left some examples out)