Neighborhood activist Regina Hammond exclaimed: “The dust is flying in Johnston Square.” This week, her words took on a new reality. The dust has indeed settled on this East Baltimore community, which now has its largest project yet in full swing. It emerges from the ground and is wrapped in construction insulation. It is one of the milestones of 2024 in Baltimore.
At the corner of Biddle Street and Greenmount Avenue, the outline of a 109-unit apartment complex that will house a new branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library is visible. It is tentatively called Greenmount Park Apartments and is part of the reconstruction of the Johnston Square community.
“It took 11 years,” said Hammond, executive director of the Rebuild Johnston Square Neighborhood Organization, when ground was broken last summer. “It took a lot of trust and a lot of collaboration.”
Hammond works closely with ReBuildMetro, the nonprofit organization that has focused on the communities adjacent to Oliver, Johnston Square and Johns Hopkins Hospital for the past 18 years. ReBuild’s work includes a door-to-door conservation approach.
Another Baltimore neighborhood that has taken decades to transition stretches along Howard Street. This part of Baltimore was once a thriving shopping center with numerous movie theaters and dozens of small businesses, but collapsed in the 1990s as investment moved to the Inner Harbor, Harbor East and Harbor Point.
Building after building, the Howard Street sector has progressed this year. It took some observation to notice the changes — it’s a large, often confusing area where crowds once flocked to stores named Hutzler’s, Hochschild’s, Hecht’s and Stewart’s, and more.
The arrival of the venerable fish stall Faidley’s to the “new” Lexington Market marked a final transition from the “old” market. This seafood stand serves as an ambassador for Baltimore’s role in the crab and oyster food preparation industry. It took a while for Faidley’s to be moved from the 1950s market to its new home. Added to that were the overhanging signs and associated paraphernalia – and, thankfully, the atmosphere.
The area around the market in the old department store district remains a work in progress.
In 2024, the land surrounding the bar and French restaurant from the old Martick’s beatnik era became a new apartment complex. Individual buildings along Park Avenue and Lexington Street underwent conversion to apartments.
The former Pollack Blum store at Howard and Saratoga streets has been completely renovated and benefits from significant investment. It now houses large, attractive apartments created in a space that was once home to carpets and bedroom furniture sets. Skeptics wondered whether tenants would want to pay for a neighborhood still dealing with years of redevelopment problems.
Chris Mfume, a partner in the project – officially called Crook Horner Lofts – said the building is “100 percent leased.”
Another neighbor, the former Greyhound bus station at Howard and Center streets, is being transformed into a squash court so the sport can be taught to aspiring players.
If anyone doubts that Baltimore’s major real estate investments have moved to the harbor, just look at the new T. Rowe Price and Allied Harbor Point structures on the water. Both were completed this year. Allied Harbor Point includes 312 apartments for rent and spaces for restaurants. Harbor Point is located at the end of Central Avenue on the waterfront.
In 2024, changes came to the village of Cross Keys in the thriving town center with a range of new restaurants and shops.
In the Old Goucher neighborhood, Hooper House and Mama Koko’s restaurant reopened in a Victorian mansion at St. Paul and 23rd Street after a fire. Like so much in Baltimore, it deserves a closer look. The interior finishes and exotic woodwork are stunning.
In 2024, major changes marked East Baltimore’s Perkins Square area. New apartment buildings were completed along South Caroline Street in an effort to rebuild a community on the site of a World War II housing project. This is a developing story that should come to fruition in 2025.
Speaking of markets, Hollins Market in southwest Baltimore reopened after a careful restoration. This transition was put together to ensure that the 19th century accents in the old main house and stable area survived, with the benefit of new plumbing.
Baltimore, once a city of manufacturing and industry, gave up that status years ago. It’s curious to see how a former Western Maryland Railway maritime terminal known as Port Covington changed when it was rebuilt in 2020. Now it has an Under Armor headquarters, numerous offices, a thriving restaurant and blocks of new townhouses on the old Locke Insulator site.
Take a look and use the Hanover Street Bridge as a landmark. It’s not the Baltimore of 1974 anymore.
Do you have a news tip? Contact Jacques Kelly at jkelly@baltsun.com and 410-332-6570.
