Apartment Building

The death on Sunday of a woman who went down a trash chute at a downtown Baltimore apartment building is not linked to the fatal plunge of a man in the same chute last year, city police said Wednesday. After 23-year-old Emily Hauze's body was found Sunday in a trash bin at the Park Charles building, detectives reviewed the file of the earlier victim, 30-year-old Harsh Kumar. Authorities confirmed their earlier conclusion that Kumar's death was an apparent accident. An autopsy report reviewed Wednesday shows that Kumar had been drinking alcohol and had simultaneously taken a powerful sleeping drug before he died.

A Washington, D.C., police officer was charged Tuesday with money laundering in connection with an alleged drug-trafficking scheme in the Pittsburgh and Baltimore areas. Federal authorities say more than $2 million in proceeds from cocaine was hidden. Officer Jared K. Weinberg, 28, was taken into custody Monday at the 4th District police station, according to a department spokeswoman. The charges in a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh allege a broad conspiracy that includes meetings in which prosecutors say large amounts of cash were exchanged at apartment buildings in Howard County and at the Mall in Columbia.

A fire broke out Sunday morning in a Laurel apartment building, forcing about 40 people from their homes and injuring one firefighter. Howard County firefighters arrived at the 9700 block of Tiger Lily Path about 5:45 a.m. to find an apartment building on fire, heavy smoke and flames visible. Residents of the third floor, where the fire was strongest, had already gotten out. After evacuating the rest of the building, firefighters were able to get the fire under control by 6:30 a.m. and completely extinguished by 8 a.m. The fire displaced about 40 people, officials estimate.

The proposed $60 million apartment-and-retail development proposed for the Towson Triangle is dredging up an old ambivalence about the character of the Baltimore County seat. Is it a college town? A community for families and children? A commercial downtown? A shopping and entertainment district? A home for empty-nesters? It is, and long has been, all of the above, coexisting in what is at times an uneasy balance that grows more uneasy periodically when any one segment of the community seeks to expand its presence.

The University of Baltimore has announced plans by a private developer to build an 11-story, 323-bed apartment building for students on a university-owned parcel of land at the northeast corner of Maryland Avenue and West Biddle Street. The $27 million project marks the first time a developer has undertaken the new construction of student housing in midtown Baltimore, the university said in a news release. The developer, Bethesda-based Potomac Holdings, expects to break ground in April 2011 and to complete the project by summer 2012.

A one-alarm fire at a 20-story apartment building in the Charles North community last night injured three elderly residents. Fire Department Battalion Chief Steve Canter said the fire broke out about 8 p.m. in a sixth-floor unit at 11 West Twenty Apartments in the first block of W. 20th St. Three residents suffered smoke inhalation - a male occupant of the unit, who was taken to Johns Hopkins Hospital, and two others, who were treated at the scene....

A four-alarm fire early yesterday destroyed a vacant apartment building in Edgewood, part of an abandoned complex of buildings recently turned over to Harford County by Aberdeen Proving Ground, state fire officials said. No one was injured in the fire, which occurred at 3:50 a.m. in the 6500 block of Hawthorne Drive, but it took 100 volunteer firefighters two hours to control the blaze, said W. Faron Taylor, deputy state fire marshal. The first firefighters on the scene had to find alternate water supplies after finding the hydrant system for the complex had been disabled, he said.

A two-alarm fire extensively damaged an apartment building in the 1100 block of N. Calvert St. yesterday, sending smoke through much of downtown Baltimore and forcing detours for northbound traffic during the afternoon rush hour.No occupants were injured, but one firefighter was treated at the scene for a cut to the hand.Central District police Officer Derry R. Howard said he was driving north about 3: 20 p.m. when he saw flames erupting from the front of the four-story apartment building at 1123 N. Calvert St.After reporting the fire, Howard entered the building and escorted Jenny Mikulski, 27, who was on the first floor, to safety.

Scores of residents, many of them elderly, were forced from an apartment building in Northwest Baltimore last night after a three-alarm fire broke out in a first-floor beauty salon. No serious injuries were reported. Fire Inspector Michael Maybin, a Fire Department spokesman, said the fire broke out about 11 p.m. in Marlene & Co. Hair & Nail Salon in the Imperial Condominiums in the 3600 block of Clarks Lane and sent smoke throughout much of the 10-story building, which has at least 60 units.

A 33-year-old Columbia man was robbed outside his apartment in Harper's Choice village Monday night, Howard County police said yesterday.Sanford W. Salley Jr. was approached from behind by three men on the sidewalk outside his apartment building, Sgt. Steven Keller, a police spokesman said.One of the men put a black long-barrel revolver to Salley's head and demanded his money, a police report said. A second man took Salley's wallet, police said, and all three fled on foot.Salley was not injured in the incident.

Multiple residents in Anne Arundel County were displaced Thursday evening after fires blazed through their homes in separate incidents. Fire officials first responded to the 6400 block of Lamplighter Ridge in Glen Burnie around 9:45 p.m. where a two-story townhome was ablaze. The 43 firefighters at the scene had situation under control within an hour, but not before three homes could endure $215,000 in damages, according to fire officials. Six people who were displaced in the event are now being assisted by the American Red Cross while a firefighter and 60-year-old male were treated for minor injuries at the Baltimore Washington Medical Center, officials said.

Howard County police have arrested a man they say set fire to an apartment in Columbia Friday and hurled obscenities at police officers before fleeing. Alejandro Adolfo Rodriguez, 25, of the 5300 block of Harpers Farm Road in Columbia, is charged with first- and second-degree assault, first- and second-degree arson, and malicious burning. Police spotted him walking in the 5400 block of Eliots Oak Road in Columbia and arrested him without incident at about 1:30 p.m. Saturday, they said.

Mary E. Weaver, a former nursery school educator who later managed a Baltimore senior living apartment building, died Feb. 22 of complications from leukemia at Stella Maris Hospice. The longtime Jacksonville-area resident was 82. The daughter of farmers, Mary Elizabeth Hoover was born and raised in Ronks, Pa., in rural Lancaster County. She was a 1948 graduate of East Lamperter High School, and two years later married Kenneth N. Weaver, a geologist. The couple lived in the city's Pimlico neighborhood.

A water pipe blocked by tiny pieces of "slag" — likely pipe shavings or soldering residue — was to blame for the water issues that left many residents of the downtown Zenith apartments without water or air conditioning this week, according to a city public works spokesman. Going floor to floor Tuesday afternoon, crews restored services in the 21-story building, said Lauren McDonald, a spokeswoman for the company that manages the Zenith. The slag pieces, each about the size of a dime, were located by city crews Monday in the filtering screen of a 6-inch-wide "backflow preventer" in the building's internal water system, not in lines maintained by the city, said Kurt Kocher, the public works spokesman.

A fire broke out Sunday morning in a Laurel apartment building, forcing about 40 people from their homes and injuring one firefighter. Howard County firefighters arrived at the 9700 block of Tiger Lily Path about 5:45 a.m. to find an apartment building on fire, heavy smoke and flames visible. Residents of the third floor, where the fire was strongest, had already gotten out. After evacuating the rest of the building, firefighters were able to get the fire under control by 6:30 a.m. and completely extinguished by 8 a.m. The fire displaced about 40 people, officials estimate.

An unidentified woman was found fatally shot in an Essex apartment early Wednesday morning, according to Baltimore County police. Officers first responded to an apartment building in the 900 block of Garden Drive about 5:30 a.m. for a report of multiple gunshots in the building, according to Cpl. Cathy Batton, a police spokeswoman. There, they found a woman with multiple gunshot wounds, Batton said. The woman, who was the only person in the apartment when police arrived, was pronounced dead at the scene, Batton said.

Developers plan to build an upscale apartment building next to the PaperMoon diner in Remington, where the diner's owner once hoped to put a restaurant. Although the Remington Neighborhood Alliance board is opposed, some residents are supportive of the proposal, which would require City Council approval to rezone the land. PaperMoon owner Un Kim abandoned plans for a restaurant after community fears it would become a nightclub. The acre is under contract to developers Sandy Marenberg of Baltimore and Earl Armiger of Howard County.

Although the Kimco plan for the Wilde Lake Village Center has faults, we want to see the project move forward for the future of Wilde Lake Village. However, we strongly oppose demolition of the Central Building part of the horseshoe shaped building enclosing the Village Green Courtyard. Kimco proposes demolition to open up the courtyard, exposing the stores to the parking lot to make store leasing easier. Yet in fully leased stores in Kimco's three Village Centers, Hickory Ridge, Kings Contrivance and Dorsey's Search over one half of the stores cannot be seen from parking.

A Chicago-based real estate investment trust that wants to rehab up to 3,000 apartments in Baltimore has made its first acquisitions in the city, the company said Wednesday. Pangea Properties has purchased 42 rental units in three apartment buildings in the Walbrook neighborhood of West Baltimore, according to a statement. The company declined to provide the purchase price or the buildings' addresses. Pangea would like to keep the locations of the properties confidential until they are ready to rent, said Lizzie Souza, a spokeswoman for the company.