Developers of the Uplands, planned as one of the biggest new-home developments in Baltimore in decades, showed a city panel yesterday their vision of the economically diverse neighborhood they want to build that would blend suburban and urban elements.
Work could start by the end of next year to transform 100 acres of boarded-up apartments near Edmondson Avenue in Southwest Baltimore into a mix of 1,100 apartments, condominiums and single-family attached and detached homes that would be for sale and rent, developers said.
With the housing slump continuing, the team plans to start with the rental homes, said a development officer for Pennrose, the lead developer on the long-planned project. The first phase would include 104 units in a mix of townhouses and apartments and could get under way by 2010, said Ivy Dench-Carter, a development officer for Philadelphia-based Pennrose.
"Now we're only proceeding with the rentals, and we're hoping within the next year the real estate market will rebound," Dench-Carter said. "We're not letting the market stop us, and the rental market isn't as badly hit."
Mix of home styles
The master plan presented yesterday to the city's Urban Design and Architecture Review Committee presented a total of 744 homes built along winding streets amid small parks with a gazebo and a clubhouse with a swimming pool. It showed a mix of detached homes, duplex and triplex homes, townhouses, apartment buildings and "mansionettes," or buildings containing three to six apartments but built to look like a large single-family home. The area sits close to the Baltimore County line, near the Ten Hills neighborhood, with large single-family homes, and the existing Uplands neighborhood of rowhouses.
David Dixon, a principal with master planning firm Goody Clancy, promised a neighborhood that would be different from surrounding areas, with a mix of housing types that would make it look neither fully urban nor suburban.
"The future of a neighborhood like this and its ability to thrive lays in the diversity of the neighborhood," he told panel members.
Rental rates and home prices have not been set. The development must include some affordable housing under an agreement with city officials.
Design panel members said they agreed with much of the design, which had changed in layout from an earlier 2004 master plan, but they asked the developers to rethink some elements. They disliked the placement of several apartment buildings along Edmondson Avenue in a way they worried could wall-off the neighborhood.
