Barclay community celebrates phase 1 of major $85 million housing makeover
Construction on the $18 million installment of affordable housing will begin next week
June 18, 2010 | BaltimoreBrew
Baltimore, MD (June 18, 2010) – On Monday evening, Barclay resident Connie Ross sat in the basement of Ebenezer Baptist Church on the corner of E. 23rd Street surrounded by developers and community organizers and prayed. Wearing a green shirt printed with a cat, a boom box and the phrase “Do not disturb,” Ross sat next to her granddaughter and asked for a “productive meeting,” that this Friday would be “a good day,” and that “the community will be more involved in the process in the future.”
Why? Because today Ross’ community and the group she leads, the Barclay-Midway-Old Goucher Coalition (BMOG), are celebrating a huge turning point for what has been, in recent years, one of the most blighted parts of Baltimore.
After years of planning, Telesis, a national developer chosen by the BMOG and the city, recently closed financing on the first $18 million phase of a massive ten-year $85 million redevelopment plan that will produce 320 units of mixed-income housing scattered throughout Barclay-Midway-Old Goucher – an area grappling with a severe case of the malady that afflicts much of the city – dilapidated vacant housing.
In an earlier era, this part of central Baltimore was known for its families with German roots, beautiful tree-lined streets, and three-story Victorian townhouses. Nowadays, some of the city’s poorest residents live here, amid boarded-up windows, graffiti-splattered buildings and flashing blue police surveillance cameras (See below for a 2000 census snapshot of Barclay).