[Chat] Fw: A vision of shops, condos at schools' headquarters

[Brad Schlegel]

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A vision of shops, condos at schools' headquarters
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City planners are proposing to revitalize the building on North Avenue, but 
its tenant has no plans to relocate.

By Laura Loh
Sun Staff

May 2, 2005
It's the place where Baltimore parents and students have flocked to air 
their frustrations over city schools for nearly 20 years.

Now some city officials envision turning the school system's hulking North 
Avenue headquarters into condominiums and retail stores. They've gone so far 
as to suggest that a restaurant could be housed on the first floor, with 
outdoor seating on the tree-lined terrace.

With little fanfare, city planners inserted the innovative proposal for the 
city-owned site at 200 E. North Ave. - which has been used for education 
since the mid-19th century - in a 42-page plan to revitalize the 
neighborhoods of Barclay, Midway and Old Goucher.

The plan drew chuckles from school officials, who say they have no plans to 
relocate. But it also has fueled the hopes of residents working to redevelop 
the area, which has high vacancy rates and drug activity.

"It would be huge," said Jennifer Martin, a spokeswoman for the 
Barclay-Midway-Old Goucher Coalition. "Turning this huge building and 
parking lot into a residential development, it would be dramatic and it 
would get people's attention."

The plan recommends that the 200,000-square-foot Dr. Alice G. Pinderhughes 
Administration Building be converted to a "mixed-use building with 
multi-family residential and commercial [units], preferably condominiums 
with some affordable rental units and a ground floor restaurant using 
terraced landscaping for outdoor seating."

City Planning Director Otis Rolley III said there is no guarantee that the 
idea will come to fruition. The city has no plans to request that school 
officials vacate the premises, he said.

Still, planners say the system's headquarters would serve as an ideal anchor 
for a larger redevelopment effort - if the school system were to decide to 
move to a smaller building.

During a school system budget crisis last year, about half of the central 
office's more than 1,000 employees were laid off. Last week, 570 people 
worked in the building.

"We're trying to figure out how to reactivate North Avenue, and that's kind 
of the heart of North Avenue," Rolley said. "We feel it can really help to 
jump-start that whole ... area."

The property on which the impressive gray stone building sits has gone 
through several incarnations over the decades. In 1868, it became the site 
of the Maryland School for the Blind. The parcel was sold to the city in 
1909, and Polytechnic Institute was built in 1912.

Poly moved to more spacious grounds on West Cold Spring Lane in the 1960s. 
And 20 years later, the city spent $14 million to convert the former high 
school building into a central office for then-school Superintendent Alice 
G. Pinderhughes' scattered administration - a lavish project that drew 
criticism and earned the building the nickname "Alice's Palace."

The latest vision for the building at North Avenue and Calvert Street is the 
furthest departure from the building's origins.

"What a revolutionary idea," said Randolph C. Knepper, a board member of the 
Greater Homewood Community Corporation. "I think it's fabulous that there 
would be demand for a building of that enormous size and visibility, or 
perceived demand."

The enthusiasm of residents and developers for the proposal, oddly enough, 
is reminiscent of the warm welcome that greeted the school administration 
when it moved to the building in 1987.

At the time, city officials and local business owners said they were sure 
the arrival of 800 office workers would provide an economic boost to the 
area.

But the community continued to deteriorate in the next two decades. Today, 
the area is dotted by abandoned homes and trash-strewn alleys. Residents and 
activists complain about the state-run parole and probation office on 
Guilford Avenue and the crime-ridden section of the Greenmount Avenue 
corridor.

That could be why the prospect of a major residential and commercial 
development on North Avenue - however far-fetched - is causing a buzz.

"With some commercial and housing activity, people are going to have to be 
out and about," said Stanley Steele, senior vice president for housing and 
community development for the nonprofit Diakon Lutheran Social Ministries, 
which is active in the area.

As it's being used now, "it's a beautiful building, but it's a passive 
building," Steele said. "The employees go into the building and stay in the 
building."

Even those who want the place transformed into a nexus of economic activity 
realize that it would take a convergence of favorable events for the vision 
to become reality.

The school system would have to decide to move its headquarters - and it 
would have to find somewhere to move to.

And the city would have to succeed in other revitalization efforts in the 
area, including the sale of about 200 city-controlled vacant properties in 
Barclay.

"No one would take on that building, in my opinion, as an island sitting 
among hundreds of vacant properties without knowing what would happen to 
those properties," said Alfred W. Barry III, a former assistant city 
planning director who now works as a development consultant.

School officials said they have no plans to leave at the moment, although 
they concede they probably don't need all of the space.

"I would say it's all being used. But is it all being used efficiently? 
That's something else," said Jeffery N. Grotsky, the system's chief of 
staff.

School officials have tossed around the idea of using extra space at North 
Avenue to house a "lab school," at which administrators could try out new 
programs and techniques with children.

After mulling over the city planners' suggestion, Grotsky found himself won 
over - with a catch.

"It would be wonderful to share the building, not move out," he said. "And 
then folks could live right in the building. I would cut down on commuting 
time, we'd have a good place to eat, and affordable housing for our staff."

Said Grotsky: "I'd probably be the first one to sign up."

Sun researcher Paul McCardell contributed to this article.

Copyright (c) 2005, The Baltimore Sun

Link to the article:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/realestate/bal-te.md.headquarters02may02,1,7821001.story