Vacant Buildings

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.

5/8 TC The plain brick orphanage and cup factory on High Street stand dormant now. But the old landmarks of East Baltimore's industrial days could soon become a modern center for homeless veterans.Maryland veterans associations want to refurbish the vacant buildings at 301-321 N. High St. and open a program to help homeless veterans get back on their feet.Many of the men who fought in the Persian Gulf, Vietnam, Korea and World War II are facing a daily battle to survive on city streets. One of every three homeless men in the country is a veteran, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless.

The city's Fire Department is re-evaluating its practice of sending firefighters into burning vacant dwellings after a floor collapse Tuesday at an East Baltimore blaze injured eight firefighters, one of them critically. "I don't want to put any more lives on the line to fight fires in vacant buildings," Fire Chief Herman Williams Jr. said yesterday. Firefighter James Critzman, a 20-year department veteran who was injured in the collapse, said he had had close calls before, "but nothing like this."

THERE ARE plenty of reasons to resent Andrew Segal. He's successful, the owner of one of the fastest-growing private commercial real estate companies in the nation.He's getting rich: Segal's Boxer Property rakes in $40 million a year in rents.He is largely self-made, having parlayed, in just six years, a single Dallas office building into a portfolio of more than 60 projects in four states.He's just 31 years old. He is charming and persuasive, too.Segal is also a newlywed, as of yesterday.

As part of its growing effort to preserve Essex, the Baltimore County government is planning to buy a small commercial building for a novel public-private effort to help area families.The county, contingent on County Council approval, will spend $550,000 for the 10,000-square-foot building at 101 Back River Neck Road called Riverwood Plaza and help a church day care center to locate there.Current tenants would remain -- a pizza carryout and a nonprofit martial arts and fitness center. But the latter would be combined with the county-run Police Athletic League and recreation programs and no longer pay rent.

Snow and ice caused the roof of a vacant Columbia building to cave in Saturday night, the second collapse of a county business in a week, Howard rescue officials said.The LPP Retail Building in the 10700 block of Little Patuxent Parkway in Columbia's Town Center was condemned by a Howard building inspector after its collapse, said Lt. Stephen Redmiles of the Howard County Department of Fire and Rescue.About 10 p.m. Saturday, police officers and firefighters responded to a fire alarm at the property owned by the Rouse Co. and discovered that more than 3 feet of snow had caused the top center of the slanted roof to cave in, setting off the sprinkler system, Lieutenant Redmiles said.

A block-long concrete eyesore that community leaders say has stifled revitalization of the commercial hub of Pimlico in Northwest Baltimore is finally coming down.The long-vacant Pimlico Center, at 5430 Park Heights Ave., is being demolished this week after four years of community pressure on City Hall.Community leaders now consider the site a symbol of hope for the rebirth of the Park Heights Avenue commercial corridor that stretches from Garrison Boulevard to Northern Parkway.Russell Kelley can hardly believe it.As president of the Northwest Baltimore Corp.

Miller Corporate Real Estate Services yesterday unveiled plans for an extensive renovation of a largely vacant office building at 31 Light St., bucking a trend that has sapped downtown's older buildings of businesses.Miller intends to move to the five-story building at Light and Lombard streets in September, leaving the 30-story Commerce Place skyscraper where it has been since 1993."We surveyed the entire market, and at the end of the day felt a loyalty to the city and we wanted to make a commitment to the city," Miller principal Ira J. Miller told the city's Architectural Review Board, which approved in principle the firm's plans.

The hulking empty apartment building at West Madison Avenue and Wilson Street was just another blemish on a neighborhood troubled by drug dealing and vandalism, but yesterday 200 community members celebrated a new plan for the five-story brick building.With the help of state and local money and private contributions, the building in the city's Madison Park area will become a community center next summer with day care for elderly adults and children, a job development program, adult education courses, and kitchen and banquet facilities.

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.