A local developer has taken steps to make sure that Baltimore’s bulk trash drop-off facility on Sisson Street will never be relocated to an industrially-zoned parcel on Falls Road, as city officials proposed last year.
Seawall Construction announced on Thursday that it has a contract to acquire two parcels that Potts & Callahan currently uses for equipment storage, 2701 and 2801 Falls Road, about four acres in all.
“Today, Seawall is excited to announce that it has put 2801 and 2701 Falls Road, both properties owned by Potts & Callahan, under contract,” the company announced in a press release. A purchase price and time frame for the transaction have not been disclosed.
The land at 2801 Falls Road is where city officials last summer said they wanted to move the city’s Sisson Street Citizen Drop Off Center so it can be sold for potential redevelopment. Potts & Callahan representatives have told city officials that the land is available because they are moving their operations to another location in the city. Seawall has submitted a proposal to the Baltimore Development Corporation to replace the Sisson Street facility with a grocery store-anchored commercial development, but BDC officials have not accepted its proposal.
The plan to move the drop-off facility from 2840 Sisson Street to the Falls Road property drew strong public opposition because the land is in a floodplain and located along a picturesque stretch of the Jones Falls Valley. Mayor Brandon Scott formed a 13-member task force to help him decide how to address the city’s bulk trash and hazardous waste disposal needs and the panel is still meeting to finalize its recommendations. The task force has ruled out recommending that the Falls Road property be used to relocate the drop-facility.
According to its announcement, “Seawall began discussions with the ownership of the Potts & Callahan properties” after the task force members said they didn’t want the drop-off facility to move there.
“These sites represent a rare opportunity to rethink how this critical corridor connects the neighborhood of Remington to the Jones Falls River and the broader valley,” Seawall said in its announcement. “Rather than advancing a predetermined plan, Seawall will initiate a community-led visioning process to explore what this stretch of Baltimore can become, together.”
Through this eventual purchase, “Seawall is working to ensure the community-led efforts to protect the Jones Falls Valley from industrial uses are realized,” the company said. “This purchase represents a commitment to the community from Seawall to never use this Falls Road site as a trash transfer facility, and for this site to be reimagined and match the ambitions of city residents.”
“We commend Seawall’s efforts to prevent future industrial uses from endangering the Jones Falls Watershed and for listening to the community,” said the Greater Remington Improvement Association Board, in a statement.
“We will continue our work to promote the greening of Remington and the protection of the Jones Falls” the board added. “We reiterate our position that the closure of the Sisson Street Drop-Off Center is the best way to realize the full potential of Remington, the Jones Falls, and Baltimore City as a whole.”
I hope that someone puts a development easment on that property! Who knows what Seawall or someone else could do in 20, 50, 100 years!
Define “picturesque.”
I guess we will need to replace all of the fliers that say, “Don’t trash the Falls” with “Don’t develop the Falls”.
Should we have been wary about a task force being formed after there was some uproar about moving Sisson to a flood plain? When the city and DPW were not investing in Sisson, but investors were eager for the site, the task force seemed to go through the motions of holding meetings, exploring options, but did they really care about how the closing would impact the entire city? After a very good turnout by proponents of closing Sisson on 2/23/26, I went to the Baltimore City Government website to see if I could get more info about this issue. This was the first thing that I saw when I searched Sisson Street Task Force: “The City of Baltimore decided to move the Sisson Street Drop-Off center to a new location. This change will make room to sell and redevelop the land in a way that better fits the community’s goals and the City’s needs. Learn more about the goals of the task force who will oversee it all.” Shortly after sending the screenshot with this statement, it was removed from the website. I do think there was some diversity in the task force members. A lot of time was spent on the task force, tedious meetings, but there was no clear desire to open this to the city, or to put this issue on the ballot.
I think this issue was poorly communicated to most of Baltimore. When I asked many of my friends and neighbors, most were not aware that Sisson was vulnerable. I don’t think their lack of knowledge was unusual. Nothing that Odette Ramos, the city, or DPW shared made me feel that they had effectively alerted the public to this issue. It is not clear to me that communicating about Sisson was their desire. When Instagram was listed as one of the ways this issue was communicated, I was stunned. Limit the task force to a few neighborhoods, limit time for the public to testify, and a website for virtual attendance that had some limitations/issues didn’t help. Some of us felt that the task force was going through the motions, but that it was not serious about getting feedback from most of the city.
Some of the opponents of Sisson St and the city and DPW suggested that it was too small and couldn’t be fixed. Yet this was the most popular and effective site in the city. Despite its size; it was beating all of the other sites in productivity and popularity. As money will help the other sites, more investment in Sisson would have improved the facilities for the workers. When task force seemed to judge or question how to count the responses, it could have been very simple. Let the citizens vote on this issue. Some members felt that some people were not clear enough in their replies, or were not living in the affected neighborhood, and, seemingly, didn’t count. When we take a poll, do we need to have names notarized?
I don’t think the Mayor and City Council realizes that Sisson Street is very polarizing in Remington and in Baltimore. While one neighborhood and developers seem quite united in their desire to close Sisson, the city seems dismissive of how many people in the city, including some in Remington, appreciate the Sisson site. If a vote of the City Council is the next step, I hope they really realize how serious this issue is to many people in our city. I am not hopeful about politicians or the process of participating as a citizen. You really don’t seem to want feedback from your constituents.
I sent the screenshot, which I mentioned in the first paragraph, to a couple members of the task force.