Ebdi

One of the builders working with Forest City East Baltimore Partnership, the master planner for East Baltimore Development Inc., is holding an open house Sunday so that potential homebuyers can get a feel for residences that they expect to construct in the footprint of the 88-acre urban renewal project near Johns Hopkins Hospital. The Verde Group, a Baltimore-based green builder, plans to sell 25 new homes along East Chase and Mcdonogh streets. The event will offer the opportunity to tour two homes that Verde has already constructed on East Chase Street, said CEO Martin Richardson.

Hundreds of residents have been relocated and dozens of homes cleared from Baltimore's Middle East neighborhood in recent years. Now the area just north of Johns Hopkins Hospital may be losing something more: its name. As an ambitious redevelopment project with biotech research labs, corporate offices and homes reshapes the neighborhood, the area is being marketed around the yet-to-be-built Eager Park — a strategy that upsets some longtime residents. "They want it to sound like there's no history here until they got here," said Donald Gresham, a leader of the now-defunct Save Middle East Action Committee, created more than a decade ago to oppose the displacement of residents.

The Goldseker Foundation has awarded a $75,000 grant to East Baltimore Development Inc., the nonprofit that is revitalizing the neighborhood north of the Johns Hopkins Medical Campus. EBDI is overseeing redevelopment of 88 acres as a $1.8 billion community with housing, shops, offices, and life science facilities. The money will used to design a permanent school for grades K to 8 and an East Baltimore stop on the MARC train line within EBDI's boundaries. - Edward Gunts

One of the builders working with Forest City East Baltimore Partnership, the master planner for East Baltimore Development Inc., is holding an open house Sunday so that potential homebuyers can get a feel for residences that they expect to construct in the footprint of the 88-acre urban renewal project near Johns Hopkins Hospital. The Verde Group, a Baltimore-based green builder, plans to sell 25 new homes along East Chase and Mcdonogh streets. The event will offer the opportunity to tour two homes that Verde has already constructed on East Chase Street, said CEO Martin Richardson.

Christopher Shea, who has served as the interim president and chief executive of East Baltimore Development Inc. since April, has been named its president and CEO. EBDI's board of directors announced Friday that Shea, 54, who came to EBDI in 2007 after serving as deputy housing commissioner for development for Baltimore, was its unanimous choice to head the seven-year-old organization after a seven-month search. He replaces John T. Shannon Jr., who left in April. EBDI is overseeing redevelopment of 88 acres north of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions as a $1.8 billion community with housing, shops, offices, life science facilities, a school and a rail station.

Many articles published about East Baltimore Development Inc. leave out important information that questions the success of the project, and this was true of a recent op-ed by Chris Shea and Doug Nelson. As members of groups representing community residents, leaders and concerned citizens of East Baltimore, we fear that such exclusions contribute to spreading certain myths about EBDI, which compound the misinformation and miscommunication that have long marked this project. Myth No. 1: This is a biotech project . EBDI began as a public-private partnership to develop a "mixed-income" community anchored by a biotechnology park that was to provide jobs for East Baltimore residents.

Recently, a group of elected officials who represent Baltimore's east side held a press conference calling for more inclusion of minority-owned firms and more jobs for their constituents through the $300 million in ongoing construction projects generated byEast Baltimore Development Inc.(EBDI). Surprisingly, they proposed to achieve their objective of increasing construction employment and inclusion by acting to "shut down" several construction projects. As president of the Maryland Minority Contractors Association and the owner of P&J Contracting in Baltimore, I share their desire to increase economic inclusion.

About 200 people shouted "Jobs! Jobs!" as they marched Tuesday through the streets of East Baltimore. Their voices grew louder and their numbers grew along the 10-block route to the headquarters of a nonprofit overseeing the $1.8 billion redevelopment of the area north of Johns Hopkins Hospital. They were orderly but vocal enough to bring people to their porch fronts. "If we don't work, nobody works!" became the rallying cry. 'We are out here fighting for construction jobs," said Richie Armstrong, an organizer with Community Services United, a coalition of local churches.

Elected officials from East Baltimore want to block the $1.8 billion urban renewal project in Middle East until more neighborhood residents and minority contractors are hired and displaced residents can benefit from the revitalization. Members of the Eastside Leadership Team criticized the 88-acre project for what they said was slow progress and a poor record of minority hiring during a news conference Wednesday outside the offices of East Baltimore Development Inc, the nonprofit leading the large-scale redevelopment just north of Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Three of four protesters arrested during a jobs march this spring at the site of a $1.8 billion East Baltimore urban renewal project appeared in Baltimore District Court Wednesday as demonstrators outside demanded charges be dropped against the "East Baltimore 4. " A June 26 jury trial in Baltimore Circuit Court was set for Thomas Threatt, a self-employed laborer who was charged with resisting arrest during the March protest at the 88-acre redevelopment...

Over the objections of some activists, the city's spending panel on Wednesday approved a new $241,000 five-year deal with East Baltimore Development Inc. Under the contract, the city will pay EBDI about $48,00 a year to landscape medians along Broadway. Members of the East Baltimore Leadership Team — a coalition of activists, churches and unions — testified against the deal Wednesday before the city's Board of Estimates, arguing that no contracts or deals should go to EBDI until it begins hiring more East Baltimore residents.

Recently, a group of elected officials who represent Baltimore's east side held a press conference calling for more inclusion of minority-owned firms and more jobs for their constituents through the $300 million in ongoing construction projects generated byEast Baltimore Development Inc.(EBDI). Surprisingly, they proposed to achieve their objective of increasing construction employment and inclusion by acting to "shut down" several construction projects. As president of the Maryland Minority Contractors Association and the owner of P&J Contracting in Baltimore, I share their desire to increase economic inclusion.

Three of four protesters arrested during a jobs march this spring at the site of a $1.8 billion East Baltimore urban renewal project appeared in Baltimore District Court Wednesday as demonstrators outside demanded charges be dropped against the "East Baltimore 4. " A June 26 jury trial in Baltimore Circuit Court was set for Thomas Threatt, a self-employed laborer who was charged with resisting arrest during the March protest at the 88-acre redevelopment...

Elected officials from East Baltimore want to block the $1.8 billion urban renewal project in Middle East until more neighborhood residents and minority contractors are hired and displaced residents can benefit from the revitalization. Members of the Eastside Leadership Team criticized the 88-acre project for what they said was slow progress and a poor record of minority hiring during a news conference Wednesday outside the offices of East Baltimore Development Inc, the nonprofit leading the large-scale redevelopment just north of Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Just north of the Johns Hopkins medical campus, in the Middle East section of East Baltimore — an area where hundreds of families were moved out and hundreds of homes were razed as part of a $1.8 billion urban renewal project — a new neighborhood is beginning to sprout. Under construction are $300 million worth of projects, including a state health laboratory, a 351-unit graduate student housing tower and a garage with a Walgreens drugstore, among other structures. Now plans are in the works for a mixed-income area with a state-of-the-art elementary school, a grocery store and restaurants, office buildings, and a park lined with loft-style apartments and a hotel.

WEATHER Today's forecast calls for rain with a chance of thunderstorms this afternoon and a high temperature around 62 degrees. The low temperature is expected to be around 48 degrees tonight. TRAFFIC Here are today's morning traffic issues . FROM LAST NIGHT... Judges hear challenge to Maryland congressional map : Three federal judges expressed skepticism Tuesday that Maryland's political mapmakers intentionally diluted black voting power when they drew new congressional districts, as the map's opponents have argued.

The nonprofit group leading the $1.8 billion redevelopment of 88 acres north of the Johns Hopkins medical campus has failed to deliver on promises of jobs and housing after razing most of the neighborhood and relocating hundreds of families, a Baltimore City Council panel was told Wednesday night. About 30 people — current and former residents and unemployed laborers — testified before the Taxation, Finance and Economic Development Committee. East Baltimore Development Inc. CEO Christopher Shea defended a project that ultimately could include 1,500 to 2,000 new and renovated residential units and up to 1.7 million square feet of commercial space.

Hundreds of residents have been relocated and dozens of homes cleared from Baltimore's Middle East neighborhood in recent years. Now the area just north of Johns Hopkins Hospital may be losing something more: its name. As an ambitious redevelopment project with biotech research labs, corporate offices and homes reshapes the neighborhood, the area is being marketed around the yet-to-be-built Eager Park — a strategy that upsets some longtime residents. "They want it to sound like there's no history here until they got here," said Donald Gresham, a leader of the now-defunct Save Middle East Action Committee, created more than a decade ago to oppose the displacement of residents.

About 200 people shouted "Jobs! Jobs!" as they marched Tuesday through the streets of East Baltimore. Their voices grew louder and their numbers grew along the 10-block route to the headquarters of a nonprofit overseeing the $1.8 billion redevelopment of the area north of Johns Hopkins Hospital. They were orderly but vocal enough to bring people to their porch fronts. "If we don't work, nobody works!" became the rallying cry. 'We are out here fighting for construction jobs," said Richie Armstrong, an organizer with Community Services United, a coalition of local churches.

A job advocacy group in East Baltimore plans to demand that the developer of a $1.8 billion redevelopment project north of Johns Hopkins medical campus hire more local residents for the next phase of construction, including work on a new public school and a state public health laboratory. The group, Community Churches United, said Thursday it would meet later this month with East Baltimore Development Inc., the nonprofit leading the renewal of 88 acres in the Middle East neighborhood, to make its hiring proposals.