Local developers won preliminary approval on Tuesday to convert a dormant church on Roland Avenue to a restaurant with outdoor seating and are now looking for a tenant to fill the space.
Baltimore’s zoning board voted 4 to 0 to allow 3900 Roland Avenue LLC, headed by Josh Mente and Jesse Vann, to create a restaurant inside the former St. Mary’s Protestant Episcopal Church at 3900 Roland Avenue.
Samantha Claassen, the owner of Golden West Café at 1105 West 36th Street, had expressed interest in moving to the church but decided to keep the café at its current location.
Mente said he and Vann acquired the church last month and are moving ahead with their conversion plan now that the zoning board has approved their zoning application. He said Claassen’s decision means the space is still available and he is searching for a tenant that would be a good fit for the property.
The seller was the Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Diocese of Maryland, also known as the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland. The diocese listed the property for sale last year. Mente declined to disclose the purchase price, and the deed has not been recorded in state records.
Mente told the zoning board members that the sanctuary is about 6,000 square feet in size and will seat “less than 200” diners. He said he believes the church is a good candidate for conversion to a restaurant because of its location and distinctive architectural features: “It’s a pretty good setting to put this type of use,” he said.
Zoning board approval was required because restaurants are considered conditional uses in R-6 districts, where the church is located. The commissioners were told that the church has a history of non-residential use, including periods when it housed a day care center, offices and, for many years, the Baltimore Shakespeare Factory. The board received two letters of support for the restaurant plan and two letters of opposition. The letters of support came from City Council member Odette Ramos, who had two community meetings about the proposal, and the Hampden Community Council. The letters in opposition came from private individuals with addresses on Roland Avenue
The city’s zoning code requires that restaurants in an R-6 district provide one off-street parking spot for every 1000 square feet of indoor dining space. Mente said he’s aiming to create up to 25 spots for dedicated use by the restaurant.
Mente also plans to create up to 29 apartments on the one-acre parcel. The city’s zoning code allows up to 29 apartments per acre and the new owners don’t need any zoning variances for housing as long as they don’t create more units than the code allows. Mente said he plans to use other parts of the property for the apartments, including a former Sunday school wing that was added in the 1950s.
Update on sale of The Wine Source
David Wells, owner of The Wine Source at 3601 Elm Ave., is planning to retire and has put his business and property up for sale. Wells hasn’t identified a buyer but he told members of the Hampden Community Council at a meeting this month that he hopes to have information to share about the sale in the near future. “You’ll know when I know,” he said at the community meeting.
After the meeting, Wells said he has “gotten a lot of offers” for The Wine Source and “it’s taken a lot of time to sort through them.” He said he hopes to be able to name a buyer sometime in June. “I think I’ve worked my last [end of year] holiday,” he added. “I should be gone sometime in September.”
As part of the ownership change, Wells said during the community meeting, he’s applying to the city’s liquor board for a new kind of liquor license. He said The Wine Source currently operates under a BD7 tavern license, which he purchased in 2009 but “doesn’t exist anymore” as a category for merchants who want to sell package goods for off-premise consumption. He said the BD7 license has been replaced by a Class A-7 license, which permits the sale of package goods. He said he is surrendering the BD7 license and pursuing an A-7 license to make it easier for a future owner, who won’t have to worry about operating with an “antiquated” license.
Wells said obtaining the new license requires action from the Baltimore City Council, and he wants the community to know what’s happening. Ramos explained at the meeting that Wells can sell package goods because he was “grandfathered in” when the current zoning code went into effect in 2017, but a new owner can’t do so unless the City Council approves the sale of package goods as a conditional use at that address.
According to the liquor board and the City Council, a holder of a Class A-7 license may sell beer, wine and liquor seven days a week, from 10 a.m. to midnight, for off-premise consumption only. Before applying to the liquor board for a Class A-7 license, the applicant must obtain approval by resolution of the City Council.
Ramos, who represents the area where The Wine Source is located, indicated that she will introduce the resolution required by the liquor board. She also told the community council members that she intends to introduce an ordinance that will allow The Wine Source to sell package goods as a conditional use, as required by the current zoning code, and that will help make it possible for a new owner to continue operating the way The Wine Source does at present.
“Now that we have the new zoning code,” she said, “we want to make sure that all of the things that every resident and all of the customers are used to, stay in place.” She said there will no changes to the store’s operation under her legislation “other than they open one hour later.”
Wells said after the meeting that he’s moving ahead with demolition of two semi-detached dwellings at 3618 and 3620 Elm Ave. to create a parking lot across the street from The Wine Source. The City Council last year approved legislation that allows him to raze the houses to create a parking lot to serve Wine Source customers. He said he hopes to complete demolition of the two houses and construction of the parking lot in the last quarter of 2024. In the meantime, he said, he has leased 10 spaces in another parking lot on the west side of Elm Avenue for use by Wine Source customers.
Apartment plan stalls for 3818 Roland Avenue
A developer’s plan to convert the former funeral home at 3818 Roland Ave. to apartments is not moving ahead.
Ramos said at the Hampden Community Council meeting that the developer who owns the building “was not able to get his financing together” for his apartment project and put the property up for auction but it didn’t sell. She said there’s a potential buyer for the property – a chiropractor who is already based in Hampden and would like to buy the building and use it as a doctor’s office.
A doctor’s office is a conditional use in a residential district and the prospective buyer would need city approval to move his practice to the Roland Avenue address. Ramos said she plans to organize a meeting with residents who live near the property to see what they think about the idea before taking the proposal to the full community council.
No demolition for the former Free State Bookbinders building
Ramos told community residents that the former Free State Bookbinders building at 3110 Elm Ave., where chimney swifts have roosted for generations as part of their seasonal migration, will not be demolished to make way for 155 apartments, as a developer, the Segall Group, proposed in 2022.
The book bindery began operating there in the 1980s but has since closed. Ramos said the building is in the final stages of being designated a city landmark, which means that any changes to the exterior would have to be approved by the city’s preservation commission.
Dating from the 1930s, the building once housed a clothing factory and currently is zoned IMU, which stands for Industrial/Mixed Use. Ramos said uses could range from manufacturing to co-working space: “There’s all kinds of options.”
Catholic church targeted for closure
Ramos said St. Thomas Aquinas Church at 1008 W. 37th St. is one of the churches in Baltimore that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore has targeted for closure, but it may not happen until the end of 2026. She said the Catholic school on the same block is already closed and church leaders are expected to outline a community process for determining what will happen to the property once decisions are final about which churches will close.
“Hampden Highlights’ festival
Saturday June 1 is the date of Hampden Highlights, a new spring festival that will take place from noon to 7 p.m. on West 36th St.
According to organizers Susannah Siger of Ma Petite Shoe and Claassen of Golden West Café, the goal is to provide a platform for small businesses, organizations, artists and musicians in the community, to raise funds for local non-profits and to encourage neighborhood investment. May 23 is the deadline for applications from prospective vendors. More information is available at hampdenhighlights.com.
The Hon festival is gone. All the history and values of all communities in Baltimore are slowly vanishing. People in today’s society really do not care about history and culture and the evidence is right there, with all the violence, quality of life, poverty unemployment it’s only getting worse. Community activists and recycled politics and politicians keep saying that things are in the works to change the narrative but truth is with each day it will continue to worsen. My advice get rid of the politicians and start from scratch