Coppin Heights CDC buys the Hebrew Orphan Asylum for a planned $12.4 million rehabilitation

Over the last several weeks, the effort to restore Baltimore’s Hebrew Orphan Asylum took a big step forward when Coppin State University, which purchased the building in 2003, and the University of Maryland agreed to sell the property to the Coppin Heights Community Development Corporation.

For nearly five years, the Coppin Heights CDC and Baltimore Heritage have led a tireless effort to rehabilitate and reuse the Hebrew Orphan Asylum. As the Baltimore Sun reported last month, the CDC is planning $12.4 million rehabilitation and to open the building in December 2015. The CDC’s architect, Kann Partners, recently completed detailed construction plans and is working with engineers and contractors to hammer out the details.

As soon as this transfer is complete, the Coppin Heights CDC is prepared to begin rehabilitation work transforming the building into the new Center for Healthcare and Healthy Living with Total Health Care Inc. as the building’s new tenant. Total Health Care currently operates eight clinics in West Baltimore and will use the entire building for a clinic, physician offices and a pharmacy. Community residents and anyone interested in the future of this West Baltimore landmark are encouraged to attend the “Prelude to Victory” meeting next week to discuss the next steps on the project. Although we are not opening the champagne bottles yet, the future for Baltimore’s Hebrew Orphan Asylum looks brighter than ever.

Rendering of proposed reuse of Hebrew Orphan Asylum, August 2011
Rendering of proposed reuse of Hebrew Orphan Asylum, August 2011

News: Brutal Reckoning: Developers are anxious to tear down the Mechanic Theatre and McKeldin Fountain, even without a plan (or money) to replace them

Brutal Reckoning: Developers are anxious to tear down the Mechanic Theatre and McKeldin Fountain, even without a plan (or money) to replace them, Fred Scharmen, Baltimore City Paper, October 14, 2014.

The Morris A. Mechanic Theatre is the first victim of what could be seen as a new wave of demolition. “In the end, this mess over the Mechanic represents a growing wave of historic preservation conflicts taking shape across the country. Modernist buildings from the middle of last century are increasingly falling out of fashion and facing the wrecking ball,” Baltimore Heritage’s Executive Director Johns Hopkins told Urbanite in 2010, when discussing plans to destroy the theater. “In the 1940s and ’50s, Victorian buildings like the Engineers Club, the Winans Mansion, and the Marburg Mansion were all considered drop-dead ugly and not worthy of preservation, and those are among our most prized architectural possessions today.”

News: Baltimore blacksmith shop to run nonprofit museum

Baltimore blacksmith shop to run nonprofit museum, Arthur Hirsch, The Baltimore Sun, October 14, 2014.

Sparks started flying at the blacksmith shop on West Saratoga Street when James Madison was president of the United States, and a crew there is still on the job, now operating in a hybrid historical museum and working business…

“It’s not just another museum,” said Johns W. Hopkins Jr., executive director of the preservation organization Baltimore Heritage. “It is highly unusual for many reasons, that combination being one of them.”

Two Baltimore walking tours with two local authors in Mount Vernon Place and Catonsville

On our busy schedule of programs this fall, we’re pleased to have two great authors leading two heritage walking tours.  Ms. Cindy Kelly, author of Outdoor Sculpture in Baltimore: A Historical Guide to Public Art in the Monumental City, is leading a tour of public sculpture on Mount Vernon Place this Saturday! If you’ve been on one of CIndy Kelly’s other tours with us, you know she makes Baltimore come alive through the artwork and stories they tell.

Early next month, we have another author-led tour: a walking tour of historic Catonsville led by our own Marsha Wise, the author of not one, but two pictorial history books on this historic community. As always, we walk rain or shine. Please come along!

World War One Centenary Tours of Zion Lutheran on September 22 and the War Memorial on October 8

We had a great time in Patterson Park this weekend as we helped to celebrate the Bicentennial of the Battle of Baltimore and shared information and artifacts from this spring’s archeological dig in Patterson Park. Over the next few weeks, we are exploring the history of the First World War with downtown Behind the Scenes tours at Zion Lutheran Church and the War Memorial Building.

We’re also excited to share that Cindy Kelly – one of our favorite tour guides and an expert on the history of Baltimore’s public art – is leading our next Mount Vernon Place tour in October and we’re partnering with AIABaltimore to organize a tour of the recently rehabilitated Chesapeake Shakespeare Theater. And don’t forget about Hampdenfest this weekend! Our friends from the Greater Hampden Heritage Alliance will be unveiling their brand-new self-guided tour brochure of Hampden landmarks.