Hampden’s latest addition: The Wine Source’s 10-space parking lot that’s been in the works for seven years

Hampden has gained a new parking lot, but it’s only for certain users.

The Wine Source has opened a 10-space parking lot that’s exclusively for its customers at 3618-3620 Elm Avenue, just across from the store at 3601 Elm Avenue.

The newly-paved lot replaces two semi-detached dwellings that stood on the property until late last year. It features 10 diagonal spaces, with cars entering from Elm Avenue and exiting onto Pleasant Place, a narrow alley. It’s next to a larger parking lot to the south.

Former Wine Source owner David Wells began planning the project more than seven years ago to provide additional off-street parking to supplement the half-dozen spaces in front of the store. According to state records, he paid $250,000 in 2016 for the house at 3618 and $300,000 in 2022 for the house at 3620. In an interview last year, he described the entire parking lot project as a “million-dollar undertaking.”

Part of the delay is that Wells offered to let the sellers of 3618, an elderly couple, stay in the house rent free after he bought it. He said the wife died within two years of the sale and the husband died about two years later.

“I never got a penny of rent from anybody for anything,” Wells said. “The guy stayed there until he drew his last breath and I never charged him anything. Why would I do that? The guy is at the end of his life. This home is all he knows and to force a guy to go out, I was just not going to do that.”

Wells sold his business last fall and it’s now operated as a worker-owned cooperative business. The houses were torn down and the parking lot was constructed after the sale was completed.

Creation of the parking lot required City Council approval because the land where the houses stood is zoned for residential use and the city’s zoning code required that council members accept the parking lot as a conditional use, which they did.

Advocates for the city’s Complete Streets ordinance note that a mid-block curb cut doesn’t comply with the Complete Streets manual adopted by the Scott administration in 2021, but the city’s Department of Transportation issued a permit for this location.

“It’s disappointing the city issued a permit here, after denying similar permits on other streets of the same typology,” said Jed Weeks, Interim Executive Director/Policy Director of Bikemore, an organization that advocates “for policies and infrastructure that create thriving neighborhoods” in Baltimore.

“We encourage elected officials to only pursue legislation consistent with existing law instead of legislation that undermines it, because the latter pressures agencies into this kind of inconsistent, inequitable and potentially unlawful decision-making that exposes the city to liability,” he said.

Even though the houses were in the Hampden National Register Historic District, they weren’t protected from demolition by any local landmark designation. City Council member Odette Ramos, whose district includes Hampden, supported the project as a way of assisting The Wine Source. “I don’t like tearing down houses for this, but they need the parking,” she said last year.