With sign-off from Baltimore’s Board of Estimates this morning, national nonprofit real estate developer The Community Builders, Inc. is proceeding with a plan to build dozens of new townhouses and apartments on several blocks in Druid Heights and Upton.
In a step that city Housing Commissioner Michael Braverman said amounts to “paying back a debt we owe Heritage Crossing,” the city has chosen a developer to rehab 38 rowhomes along two blocks near the Upton housing community.
Shuttered since summer of 2017, the downstairs bowling alley at the Shake and Bake Family Fun Center in Upton is set to make a comeback this spring, according to the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks.
Pennsylvania Avenue, the thoroughfare running through central West Baltimore, was once home to countless jazz clubs, theaters and other hangouts offering a reprieve from Jim Crow and a hub for black culture in the city. That heyday faded rapidly early in the second half of last century.
With litigation over a long-stalled development plan for State Center apparently close to wrapping up, Gov. Larry Hogan this morning announced his administration is kicking off the process of finding a new developer to tackle an overhaul of the aged Midtown government complex.
The city has ordered a New York-based property firm to pay a $463,772 in penalties after a contractor’s surprising unauthorized demolition of Upton’s historic former St. Vincent’s Orphan Asylum building.
For retired Baltimore Colts wide receiver Glen “Shake and Bake” Doughty, Friday morning was a triumphant moment. More than half a year after the city shut down his eponymous Upton rolling-skating rink and bowling alley due to its falling into a state of disrepair, he was there to celebrate its revival.
“Make no mistake, it’s time to shake and bake!” he shouted in the lobby.
A pre-Civil War building in Upton that once housed an orphanage and was included in a National Register of Historic Places district was completely knocked down over the last week, despite the city’s attempts to halt demolition over the weekend.
Shake and Bake Family Fun Center, the 35-year-old roller skating rink, bowling alley and arcade in West Baltimore’s Upton neighborhood, will be shutting down next week to undergo major repairs.
