More than 1,300 public housing units and a school would be demolished as part of a sweeping $1 billion plan to redevelop nearly 200 acres in East Baltimore that sit between affluent Harbor East and Johns Hopkins Hospital.
The plan is being spearheaded by the Housing Authority of Baltimore City and a team of private developers who aim to connect the city’s burgeoning waterfront neighborhoods to the hospital by way of Monument and Caroline streets and the Central Avenue corridor.
The effort could begin within a year if a $30 million federal housing grant is awarded in the coming months to the Housing Authority. The city applied to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in late November for a Choice Neighborhoods grant that would pay for a portion of the project. Other funding would come from federal, state and local grants, a tax increment financing package and private equity and mortgages, said Tania Baker, a spokeswoman for the Housing Authority of Baltimore City.
“This will have a very positive impact for the east side of Baltimore,” said Tim Pula, vice president for community development at Beatty Development, a partner in the project. “Seventy years ago, we built some pretty horrible housing for poor people and that housing has not been maintained and upgraded, for all sorts of reasons.”