On a stretch of downtown west filled mostly with parking lots, the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) sees its next chapter.
The university wants to turn a swath of largely vacant land along the West Lexington corridor into a “college town.” The redevelopment costing nearly $300 million adds new housing, a sit-down restaurant and an athletic field to land it largely owns.
“It’s an opportunity to develop the northern end of our campus to make it a vibrant community,” said Bruce Jarrell, president of UMB since 2020. “We think of it as a college town, an area where young people, older people want to live together. They will put feet on the street to make energy happen around here.”
Read more (and listen) at WYPR.
It is sad that this city continues to use demolition as a way to cover up decades of pandering to the slum lord industry. Adding salt to the wound is for the city to get land, demolish the old buildings on that land then turn it over for little or no cost to another juggernaut Non profit or in this case a public-private empire where the public pays for the profit of the private. This is just another in the many bad ideas where we allow a small group decide what happens to the fabric of the city. Most of us taxpayers are not involved with the decisions to constantly demolish parts of the city so a small industry of insiders can continually expand their empire. How big does Uni of MD need to get in order for it to be big enough. The fact that the University Hospital was mismanaged by the college, then given to a small number of well connected people to be their own money machine, but with the taxpayer’s dollar, then for the leader of that group to be an active participant with the former Mayer, buying up thousands of her books as a way to pay for access, is wild. Though that person was pushed out the insider trading continues. In the past few years many blocks have been stripped of their historic buildings, only to be part of a bigger scam to make it look like they are doing right for the city. Its odd that they always feel they must destroy the neighborhood in order to save it. This is esp ugly when they are a medical institution. The land which this institution gets will for ever be off the tax roles and resulting in less for the citizens. They think that the smell of the new will lure skittish suburbanites to the city. Just look across town at Hopkins Medical. Their history of being a toxic neighbor speaks volumes that these entities are about profiting a small group of selected folks on the public’s. dime. Both Medical centers have a poisonous effect on the neighborhoods in which they reside. Its why there has been no outside development.