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Council reviews lease-option and site changes tied to redevelopment near 1010 Baltimore Street
Summary
Council members discussed a proposed redevelopment near 1010 Baltimore Street that would relocate a baseball field, create new housing units, and use disaster-recovery bond funds; speakers described timing, ownership structure and that much of the site will be privately owned and managed.
Council members and staff discussed a redevelopment proposal tied to 1010 Baltimore Street that would reconfigure adjacent vacant land, move a baseball field, and create new affordable housing units as part of a larger site plan.
A council speaker described a plan to move the baseball field on a vacant parcel to enable reconfiguration of the 1010 Baltimore property, saying the change would allow a developer to clear and redevelop obsolete structures while preserving voucher-holder relocation rights. The parcel donation and lease-option were presented as tools to keep the project feasible through financing milestones.
Council discussion included timing: staff said the developer needs the lease option between the meeting date and Nov. 1 to keep the project viable; bonds are typically issued in the summer and closing is expected within six months of bond issuance. One speaker summarized an approximate overall timeline as about three years to complete construction from the current date. The transaction was described as privately owned and privately managed housing, with the Housing Authority possibly a part owner and potentially holding an option to purchase later.
Speakers noted project scale and housing targets. The vacant portion under immediate consideration would yield about seven units; the overall site includes about 95 units, with comments that at least 25 units would be returned to service and that bonds might allow the developer to restore roughly 40 units in the middle case. Unit sizes discussed for the new buildings were about 1,200 to 1,300 square feet.
Funding references in the meeting included disaster-recovery dollars drawn from a larger $53,000,000 pool and a comment by a council speaker recalling “It’s 11.3, I believe.” That dollar figure was stated on the record as an estimate and not confirmed in the packet; the transcript does not specify whether $11.3 million is the exact allocation for this parcel or a related component of the redevelopment.
Council members also asked whether the new development would follow the same development standards used in the earlier HOPE VI-style Riverside project; staff said the same developer is involved but the new design will be townhouse style rather than three-story buildings to better fit the neighborhood.
No final rezoning vote or contract approval was recorded in the pre-meeting discussion; staff and councilors described next steps for lease-option timing, bond financing, and subsequent design work.
