The Ynot Lot, a fixture for festivals and community gatherings in the Station North Arts District, is planning to move to a new location after their current lease ends Sept. 30.
The Central Baltimore Partnership is looking to relocate the Ynot Lot to a “long-term home” with plans to remain along the Charles Street corridor in Station North.
“The Ynot Lot has been an invaluable treasure for the Station North Arts District,” Central Baltimore Partnership Executive Director Ellen Janes said in a statement. “It has not only been a genuinely, intentionally, inclusive performance and event space, it has also been a hub for building community and a site for service to our most vulnerable community members.”
Janes said the partnership is working with the Friends of the Ynot Lot to search for a new site, and that they welcome community input.
The 6,000-square-foot outdoor venue was created in 2014 at the northwest corner of Charles Street and North Avenue. Since then, it has been operated and managed by the Station North Arts District, a Central Baltimore Partnership program.
Over the past eight years, the Station North Arts District has made $60,000 worth of capital improvements to the Ynot Lot, including planting mature trees, installing benches designed by local sculptors, putting up string lights to illuminate the lot from dusk to dawn, and creating a stage to host performances, Central Baltimore Partnership officials said.
The partnership added that the lot has also served as “a hub for social justice movements: Black Live Matters, LGBTQ+ rights, Baltimore Cease Fire, Harm Reduction, and AAPI solidarity.”
The Ynot Lot typically hosts 100 events each year – both large and small – including Baltimore Pride, the Maryland Film Festival, Ratscape, Love Groove, the Baltimore City Health Department’s National Overdose Awareness Week, Farm to Stoop food and resource distribution, Nu Luv Fest, and others.
