Ground has been broken, buildings are being leveled and local leaders anxiously wait to see the fruits of a 10-year project to revitalize the Middle East Baltimore community as part of the East Baltimore Redevelopment Plan.
Some of the project?s success thus far is linked to the U.S. Treasury’s New Market Tax Credit program, aimed at providing incentives for businesses to invest in low-income communities, said Jack Shannon, president of East Baltimore Development, Inc.
Shannon’s firm is a nonprofit group charged with overseeing an $850-million, 80-acre portion of the redevelopment plan.
“New market tax credits are a means of encouraging investment in census tract areas that have economic distressed conditions,” Shannon said.
“The idea is that by leveraging private investment with credits, it creates incentives for investors to place their funds in communities that previously had not been targeted.”
The market tax credits helped East Baltimore Development raise an additional $15 million in working capital for its development mission, Shannon said. At its core is the Life Sciences Center of what will be known as the Science and Technology Park at Johns Hopkins, according to Johns Hopkins University officials. Ground was broken for the center in April. It is scheduled to open in early 2008.
Site work is also under way for residential housing, Shannon said.
The aim is to build an area where biosciences and pharmaceutical companies will locate so that they can be near Johns Hopkins scientists and research expertise. Treasurer Anna Escobedo Cabral was on hand Friday at the headquarters for East Baltimore Development to discuss urban development and the new market tax credits.
“(East Baltimore Development) has done exactly what we hope will be done in communities again and again over time,” Cabral said during a celebration on Chase Street in Middle East Baltimore Friday. “Baltimore was one of the first communities to take advantage of the market tax credits.”
The East Baltimore project is expected to take 10 years to build with Johns Hopkins occupying about 400,000 square feet.
In addition, about 1,200 new and renovated mixed-income housing units will be available and between 4,000 to 6,000 jobs, many involving local East Baltimore residents, are expected to be created, Shannon said
