The West North Avenue Development Authority (WNADA) will hold its final comprehensive planning meeting on Saturday, Nov. 15 from 10 a.m.-noon at Coppin State University’s Tawes Ballroom.
WNADA’S executive director, Chad Williams, announced the meeting in a message sent to the West North Avenue community. He also announced the end of the comprehensive planning phase of revitalizing the West North Avenue corridor and its 16 historic neighborhoods.
“In the past two years, WNADA, in partnership with the community, has developed economic, housing, transportation, neighborhood, green space, and arts and culture goals, objectives, and strategies that are directing the agency’s redevelopment activities, while investing nearly $40 million in grants to businesses and real estate ventures that support our work,” Williams said in the message. “The second phase of the comprehensive plan will finalize conceptual plans for residential, commercial, retail, streetscape, intersection, and recreational sites along the corridor and in neighborhoods, catalyzing economic renewal in West Baltimore.”
The next phase involves finding real estate developers with whom to partner as they bring their plans to life, all with the “grand vision of equitable economic development” for all neighborhoods along the corridor. These include Walbrook, Coppin Heights, Easterwood, Mondawmin, Sandtown-Winchester, Penn North, Druid Heights, Reservoir Hill, and other neighborhoods. Williams mentioned the importance of the “genuine community participation” from all these neighborhoods in every phase of revitalization and thanked them for their contributions.
“I look forward to personally thanking you this Saturday as we end this phase of our work,” he wrote.
Williams also gave an update on the grant awards he recently recommended to the WNADA Governing Board, which exceeded $50,000. The grants either surpassed the group’s scoring threshold or achieved the highest scores in their individual funding categories (i.e., economic, housing, transportation, neighborhood, green space, and arts and culture).
He will present those recommendations to the Board for consideration at their October and November board meetings. The WNADA Governing Board agendas and minutes for Board Meetings are available for review on the WNADA website. Those recommendations will be the last ones (with a few exceptions) for the FY26 (Round 3) grant award determinations.
Going forward, WNADA will probably not award more grant funds for acquiring and developing single-family residential row homes or commercial vacant properties for light-industrial, manufacturing, office, retail, restaurant, and entertainment spaces. WNADA will do that directly, and might partner with small real estate developers, businesses, and community-based development organizations to develop those properties to fit the comprehensive plan.
They will, however, continue to gap-fund low-rise, high-density, affordable market-rate multifamily, and large-scale mixed-use projects that match WNADA’s priorities, like student housing for Coppin State University. Williams said the gap-funding would help increase residential density in the city, which is something both Mayor Brandon M. Scott and Governor Wes Moore have favored.
WNADA expects to open its FY27 (Round 4) grant application process on Thursday, April 9, 2026, with a submission deadline of Thursday, April 30. The authority expects to recommend awards to the Governing Board at either the June or July meeting and begin disbursing approved funds as installments no later than Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026.
Anyone interested in participating in Saturday’s final comprehensive planning meeting can register on WNADA’s website.
