Building

The building at Annapolis' worst drug corner is battered and abandoned, riddled with bullet holes and filled with roaches. But for the Clay Street community, the two-story brick Butterworth Building is not a lost cause.By April 1, the city will put a police substation in the building at Clay and West Washington streets. Community activists hope to turn the building into a neighborhood outreach center.The Clay Street Improvement Association is working with the city's Planning and Zoning Department to tap government loans so that it can set up shop in the building.

The Walters Art Gallery's 1974 building has developed so many problems that it can no longer safely house the institution's priceless collection of Egyptian, Greek and Roman art. Officials estimate the total cost of repairs at about $6 million -- about half of which must be raised from city, state and federal governments.The problems include a climate-control system that cannot maintain the steady temperature and humidity levels needed to preserve works of art, ceiling-mounted "reheater" coils that drip water and oil on the floor and unsafe or inadequate stairwells and handicapped access ramps.

All told, it is a $710 million building program. But you won't hear much about it in the weeks and months ahead. Maryland's capital, or construction, budget is one of this state's best-kept secrets. Yet what's placed in this budget determines the shape of this state's infrastructure in the years to come.There is little that is sexy in Gov. William Donald Schaefer's latest capital program. It is a sign of the times, though, that state leaders have agreed to increase building plans by some $63 million over last year.

A divided Board of Public Works gave wrecking crews the green light Wednesday to demolish the 55-year-old home of the president of the University of Maryland, College Park to make way for a $7.2 million building that will serve as a residence and a location for large events. The board voted 2-1 to allow the College Park Foundation to move forward with its plans to replace the home, with Comptroller Peter Franchot opposed. Foundation officials contend that the existing 1956 structure is obsolete, hasn't been renovated since 1991 and could not meet contemporary building or safety codes.

The First Maryland Building, a 22-story office tower at 25 S. Charles St., has changed hands and is now in the control of a Dallas-based investment company called the Hallwood Group.Eric Forshee, senior property manager for a Hallwood subsidiary, Hallwood Management Co., said that his firm took over management of the 19-year-old building June 1. That change came eight months after another Hallwood subsidiary, Hallwood Realty Partners, became the general partner of the group that owns the building, First Associates Limited Partnership.

Nearly $200,000 worth of computers and software were stolen over the weekend from the city's Patapsco Sewage Disposal Plant at Wagner's Point in southern Baltimore, police said yesterday. The theft was discovered about 7 a.m. Monday by Richard Banks, manager of the Department of Public Works building in the 3500 block of Asiatic Ave. Brooks told police he secured the building at 3: 05 p.m. Friday. The building was entered through a rear second-story window, said Agent Angelique Cook-Hayes, a police spokeswoman.

Chase-Brexton Clinic Inc. said it will buy the 20,000-square-foot office building at 1001 Cathedral St. by the end of the month, giving the city's second-biggest AIDS clinic needed expansion space and generating a new use for a building that had been foreclosed upon."

A Maryland tax assessor says the price the county commissioners have agreed to pay for a building to house school headquarters is reasonable because the most recent assessment of the site is artificially low.Ed Burgoon, a commercial assessor for the state in Carroll, said last week that he would value the former manufacturing building about $4 million if he were to assess it today.Mr. Burgoon said he assessed the 156,000-square-foot building in 1990 for $3 million. At the time, Telemecanique Inc. occupied the building, which sits on 24 acres.

MUCH HAS BEEN said about the new Constellation Center in recent weeks. However, virtually nothing has been said about the history of the building, its purpose and how crucial it is for the very survival of the grand old First Ship of the U.S. Navy.The Constellation is owned by the U.S.F. Constellation Foundation, Inc., which is charged with the preservation, restoration and maintenance of the ship so that she can be kept open to the public. The foundation is a tax-exempt, non-profit, private foundation.

The Charles L. Benton Jr. Building remained closed today after gasoline fumes wafted from the basement of the downtown building that houses 1,200 city employees.Yesterday, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke sent workers home at noon after many complained of the fumes at the building at 417 E. Fayette St.Investigators believe the fumes may have been forced into the building by nearby construction of the Metro extension from Charles Center to Johns Hopkins Hospital.A spokesman for the state Department of the Environment said the fumes, identified as "weathered gasoline," are trapped below the basement.