Baltimore’s Hendler Creamery, home of the country’s first fully-automated ice cream factory, will be commemorated in a $3 million park that’s expected to open by early 2027 in the Jonestown Historic District.
Baltimore’s Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation (CHAP) on Tuesday approved final plans for Recovery Park, the name of a two-acre green space that the leaders of Helping Up Mission are working to create where the ice cream factory once stood, as an addition to their East Baltimore campus.
The park at 1100 E. Baltimore St. will be the first major green space in downtown Baltimore since the State of Maryland took down the former Bard Building owned by Baltimore City Community College and created a 1.1-acre open space bounded by Market Place and Water, Gay and Lombard streets. Work on that $4.2 million project began in late 2023 and was completed by March of 2025.
Helping Up Mission is a Christian-based non-profit organization that works to break the cycle of addiction and poverty through services encompassing food and shelter, education and job training, psychological and spiritual support.
Formed in 1885, it moved to 1029 E. Baltimore St. in 1955 and later expanded in neighboring properties. Its operations include a 500-bed residential additional treatment center for men and a 250-bed shelter for low-income and homeless women and children. Its headquarters is directly across Baltimore Street from the former Hendler property.
An affiliate of Helping Up Mission acquired the former Hendler Creamery property in 2024 after a developer, an affiliate of the Commercial Group of Hanover, Maryland, started but failed to complete a $75 million, 296-unit apartment building that would have incorporated the shell of the ice cream factory. CHAP has authority to review plans for the property because it’s part of a city historic district.
Ice cream factory
Designed by Jackson Gott and others, the Jonestown building was constructed in 1892 and initially helped power the city’s then-fledgling cable car system, operated by the Baltimore City Passenger Railway Company. It was converted to a theater in 1903. In 1912, the Hendler Ice Cream Company converted it to the country’s first fully-automated ice cream factory. Hendler remained in business until the 1970s. Its factory was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.
Commercial Group (through an affiliate, Hendler Creamery Development LLC), removed the building’s roof and gutted much of the interior before it stopped work in 2018. Helping Up Mission emerged as the contract purchaser in the fall of 2022, with plans to landscape the parcel as a green space for use by its clients, and a potential future development site. The property sale to Helping Up Mission was contingent on the city’s agreement to issue a demolition permit for the rest of the Hendler building, and that triggered CHAP’s involvement.
In March of 2023, CHAP declined in a vote of 8 to 3 to block demolition of the rest of the building, after panel members heard arguments that the partially-demolished building had lost its historic integrity and was no longer a contributing structure to the Jonestown Historic District.
CHAP’s vote paved the way for the city to issue a demolition permit allowing Helping Up Mission to take down rest of the structure and move ahead with its project.
The parcel is bounded by Baltimore Street on the south, Aisquith Street on the east, Fayette Street on the north and East Street on the west. The front wall of the Hendler building had been braced for more than two years before it was taken down.
Salvaged artifacts
Thomas Stone, senior director of facilities for Helping Up Mission, told the preservation panel that the park will be surrounded by a fence and available for use by the clients of Helping Up Mission during daylight hours. He said the organization will install a key-card system to help control who can gain access to it.
STV Inc. is the landscape architect and civil engineer, with Heather English as the project manager. Helping Up Mission is serving as the general contractor.
Features will include running/walking paths; ornamental trees and other plantings; a pavilion for music and other events with seating for about 100; a pergola; a pickleball court; a fitness station; benches and tables for reading and socializing; six “shade sails”; a lawn for athletic activities and two guard booths.
Stone said some architectural artifacts that were salvaged during the Hendler building’s demolition will be displayed on a wall in the park. Bricks saved from the Hendler building will be used as paving at the Baltimore Street entrance and elsewhere in the park.
To help tell the story of the building that was on the site, Stone said, the project will include plaques mounted on the metal fence on the Baltimore Street side of the property, with information about the Hendler Building and its different uses, and a scannable QR (Quick Response) code will be displayed to enable visitors to look up more information about the Hendler property’s historical and architectural significance. Helping Up Mission hopes to work with Baltimore Heritage and others to prepare a comprehensive history of the site, he said.
Stone said Recovery Park will not be open to the general public the way city-owned parks are, but it may be open to the public on certain occasions. He said Helping Up Mission is open to the idea of collaborating with the nearby Ronald McDonald House Charities of Maryland, the Jewish Museum of Maryland and others to hold joint events in the park.
‘Helping people recover’
According to Stone and Sky Woodward, General Counsel and Chief Administrative Officer of Helping Up Mission, the organization has hundreds of people on its campus at any given time and the park has been designed to aid them in their recovery.
Helping Up Mission acquired the land at a cost of $8 million and has secured all the construction funds needed from a mix of public and private sources, including $100,000 from Maryland’s General Assembly, they said.
Stone and Woodward said after the meeting that CHAP’s approval was one of the last steps the organization needed to start construction, along with obtaining building permits. They said the construction timetable calls for work to begin this spring and be complete by January or February of 2027.
The name ‘Recovery Park’ is meant to represent the new lives of those who are in addiction recovery and a new life for the long-abandoned property.
“We have named it ‘Recovery Park’ to reflect the nature of Helping Up Mission’s core work: helping people recover from addiction and homelessness,” Woodward said.
