Vacant Buildings

The Board of Public Works gave the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene the green light Wednesday to move forward with the emergency demolition of 18 vacant buildings at the Henryton State Hospital Center in Carroll County. The center, which opened in 1922 to serve African-Americans with tuberculosis, has been closed since 1985, and there have been reports of vandalism and fires at the site. The state fire marshal had expressed concern that the vacant buildings pose a safety hazard — especially to firefighters.

The Board of Public Works gave the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene the green light Wednesday to move forward with the emergency demolition of 18 vacant buildings at the Henryton State Hospital Center in Carroll County. The center, which opened in 1922 to serve African-Americans with tuberculosis, has been closed since 1985, and there have been reports of vandalism and fires at the site. The state fire marshal had expressed concern that the vacant buildings pose a safety hazard — especially to firefighters.

In an initiative to reduce the number of vacant houses pockmarking Baltimore neighborhoods, city lawyers have asked for injunctions against two inner-city landlords, demanding that they either fix their properties or tear them down.Until now, most of the city's efforts to get landlords to raze or repair their substandard properties involved prosecuting them for violating the housing code -- a criminal misdemeanor that carries a fine of up to $500 per offense but no jail time.By requesting civil injunctions, city officials hope to obtain court orders demanding that the landlords take action.

Baltimore City fire officials say no one was injured in a blaze at a vacant house on West Franklin Street in the city late Saturday night. Firefighters responded to the house around 11:55 p.m. Saturday night, officials said. Upon arrival, companies found heavy fire on all three floors of a vacant house in the 1100 block of W. Franklin Street.  Firefighters began working the blaze, but officials said holes in the floors on upper levels created unsafe conditions, and responders were ordered to evacuate.

Two vacant buildings side by side on East Baltimore Street in Taneytown could become a hub of activity for area residents if a plan to renovate the space is approved.Representatives of city, county and state groups are working on a plan to convert the buildings to a community center, Jolene Sullivan, Carroll's director of citizen services, told the county commissioners yesterday.Some officials plan to tour the buildings, which are across the street from City Hall, at 9 a.m. Thursday, she said.

The state Fire Marshal's office is investigating whether a string ofrecent barn and vacant building fires in the county is the work of an arsonist.A fire in Waterloo on Tuesday is the fourth suspiciousfire in three weeks involving vacant buildings, county fire records show.Tuesday's fire occurred at a vacant house on Old Waterloo Road near Port Capital Drive.The fire began at approximately 8 p.m., directly across from the site where someone set fire to a vacant barn onSunday.Firefighters say the barn was a total loss; a damage estimate onthe two-story home was not available.

Edward W. Lee Jr. is a landlord and developer who has been trying for four years to get the city to sell him five vacant, rat-infested buildings in the 800 block of N. Fulton Ave.But, despite an apparent lack of interest by anybody else in the properties and the Schmoke administration's stated goal of reducing the city's stock of 5,000 vacant houses, Lee's repeated inquiries have yet to yield much of anything except frustration.Lee says the city's Department of Housing and Community Development initially told him that the buildings belong to the Housing Authority, a separate agency that has strict guidelines for the disposal of property.

After some small tinkering last night, the County Council appears poised to pass a bill intended to boost revitalization efforts in several blighted commercial areas. Councilwoman Pamela G. Beidle's proposal would allow vacant buildings to be transformed into self-storage facilities - as long as they meet guidelines, including clauses that would prohibit outside doors and restrict the expansion of storage space beyond existing buildings. Her proposal also would allow mixed commercial and residential development on properties within 15 designated revitalization areas, which are mostly in northern Anne Arundel County.

One month before the Lexington Terrace high-rises are to be blown up to usher in a new era of public housing, police experts yesterday set off their own bombs in the vacant buildings to practice solving cases.A series of three explosions rocked the area in the 700 block of W. Saratoga St., giving teams of local and federal authorities a chance to practice their skills at detecting explosives and finding minuscule fragments that can solve cases."This is really a unique opportunity," said Officer Joseph A. Costantini, an investigator with the Baltimore Police Bomb Squad.

Workers began knocking down a row of vacant buildings Thursday in the heart of downtown Baltimore's old shopping district, marking the first large-scale demolition for urban renewal targeted at a swath of the west side. The city is razing much of the north side of the 200 block of W. Lexington St. before handing the property over to a developer who is planning new stores and a tower that could house offices, apartments or a hotel. The project is part of larger plans to revitalize a collection of blocks near Lexington Market known as the "superblock" - plans that have been stalled for nearly a decade.

Baltimore police fatally shot a man in West Baltimore Saturday after he slashed an officer who was investigating a burglary complaint, officials said. The shooting occurred at about 12:30 p.m. in the 1600 block of W. Lexington St. Anthony Guglielmi, the department's chief spokesman, said officers received a 911 call for a possible burglary and encountered a man on the third floor of a vacant building. He said the man lunged at the first officer, cutting him on the face. A second officer fired at the suspect multiple times.

Should Baltimore spend almost all the $10 million it's getting from the nationwide mortgage settlement on demolishing vacant homes? That's the city's plan . Marceline White questions the wisdom of that idea. White, executive director of the Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition and a Bolton Hill resident, wonders why the city isn't instead putting a sizable chunk of the money toward rehabbing, adding to the stock of livable homes and hopefully also the number of city residents.

A 48-year-old East Baltimore man has been charged with raping a teenage girl in a vacant building last month after police said DNA evidence linked him to the assault. Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the suspect, Alvin Ray Wright, is accused of "viciously attacking and sexually assaulting" the 13-year-old girl in a vacant house in the 800 block of N. Caroline St. on Oct. 17. Wright, of the 1600 block of N. Milton Ave., is on probation for a 2009 drug conviction and does not have a prior record of sexual assaults, but police said they would compare the DNA evidence to other open cases.

Two vacant buildings collapsed Wednesday evening near the intersection of Light and East Ostend streets in South Baltimore, across from the Light Street branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library . Preliminary reports indicate that no one was in the three-story buildings or injured by the collapse, said Chief Kevin Cartwright, a spokesman for the Baltimore City Fire Department. "It came down in less than 15 minutes," said Jenny Stefanowitz, who lives less than a block from the scene on Ostend Street.

Baltimore County firefighters battled a one-alarm fire Monday morning in a vacant building at the shuttered Fort Howard Hospital in Edgemere. The fire did extensive damage to the first floor lobby of the six-story brick building at the former military hospital along the Patapsco River. No other buildings at the site on North Point Road were damaged and no firefighters were injured. mary.gail.hare@baltsun.com

It took an act of God, some wayward city snowplows and a few diligent neighbors to get Tiffany Square back on track. Since the West Baltimore memorial was created in 1991 to honor the memory of a 6-year-old killed by an errant bullet, time had given way to neglect, and the drug dealers had returned. Then plows clearing last year's double-dose of heavy snowfall inadvertently crumbled the colorful but fading retaining walls. For Mable Gordon and other residents, enough was enough.

PHILADELPHIA -- Everybody talks about how Philadelphia is collapsing. But Mike Fink has the pictures to prove it.A city inspector, Fink was standing in front of a vacant and leaning house in North Philadelphia one morning in March deciding how to get rid of the accident waiting to happen when suddenly gravity began doing its thing."

IS DOWNTOWN Baltimore becoming one big parking lot, or does it just seem that way?In practically every corner of the city, property owners are razing vacant buildings to enlarge parking lots or make way for new ones.The latest demolitions involve buildings in the 200 block of E. Baltimore St. and the northwest corner of Park Avenue and Franklin Street.Also slated to come down are the home of Tate Engineering Systems at West and Russell streets near Camden Yards (due to become a 437-space lot for the Maryland Stadium Authority)

A four-alarm blaze that began late Saturday night significantly damaged a seven-story vacant building on the west side of downtown and took firefighters more than five hours to put under control, fire officials said. A firefighter suffered a minor injury during the fire in the 300 block of N. Howard St., said Chief Kevin Cartwright, a spokesman for the city fire department. The cause of the fire remains under investigation, Cartwright said. The fire was declared under control at 5:18 a.m. Sunday.

Over the years, Eva Brown has watched neighbors on North Calhoun Street move out or die off, leaving their homes to fall slowly into disrepair, with windows boarded and foundations crumbling. In September, living among abandoned houses cost Brown the roof over her head when fire swept through the vacant buildings on her block. More than 100 firefighters, some coming from Washington for the first time since the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904, arrived to battle the spreading flames.