Vacant Buildings

Fire crews were searching through the rubble of a building collapse on Druid Hill Avenue, but after more than an hour of searching officials said it did not appear anyone was hurt. The collapse was reported about 3:20 p.m. at a vacant two-story building in the 1800 block of Druid Hill Ave., said Chief Kevin Cartwright, a fire department spokesman. The caller said a woman had been walking by and was possibly trapped under the debris. "There's no evidence whatsoever [of a trapped person]

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.

A fire last night at a vacant building on the campus of the Rosewood Center in Owings Mills destroyed that building, and embers from the fire burned part of an adjacent vacant structure, a spokesman for the Baltimore County Fire Department said. Fire Director Kyrle Preis, the spokesman, said that because the two-story brick building was slated for demolition, the officer in charge at the scene ordered firefighters to let it burn rather than endanger the lives of firefighters. "It was declared a control burn," Preis said.

A single-alarm fire last night extensively damaged a vacant storefront building in West Baltimore, and, for a short time, a firefighter was unaccounted for and feared injured, a Fire Department spokesman said. Reported about 7 p.m. at Pennsylvania Avenue and Sanford Place in the Druid Heights neighborhood, the fire spread to all three floors but was confined to the building, said Chief Kevin Cartwright, the spokesman. Cartwright said that during the fire, commanders on the scene enacted a personnel account report, requiring firefighters battling the blaze to report their location and condition by radio.

For years, investors have largely ignored the properties near the old American Brewery in East Baltimore, choosing to buy rundown real estate elsewhere in the city in hopes of capitalizing on appreciating values. But in recent months, interest has picked up. A former commercial laundry that has been vacant for nearly a decade has been sold to a Northern Virginia investor who says he wants to turn the nearly block-long building into a bakery or other business. Separately, two recently created corporations - one composed of a mother and daughter from Baltimore the other headed by an eye doctor in Prince George's County - have purchased a total of more than 80 discounted tax certificates from the city on vacant lots and rowhouses near the brewery and have begun foreclosure proceedings to take control of the properties.

Last October, I attended a street-side wake on North Bradford Street for a man and a teenager who were shot to death there. I made the visit while reporting for articles about the blocks around the vacant American Brewery building in East Baltimore. The resulting two-part series, "A Neighborhood Abandoned," ran late last month. On July Fourth, I went back to the 1700 block, my third visit since publication to an area where about half the properties, including the historic brewery, are vacant buildings or barren lots and an equal percentage of the people live in poverty.

Baltimore development officials hope to give the revitalization of downtown's west side a boost by offering seven mostly vacant properties for redevelopment. The Baltimore Development Corp. yesterday requested proposals from developers for seven scattered sites in the once-struggling neighborhood. Since the city adopted an urban renewal plan in 1999, the Hippodrome Theater has been refurbished, and private developers have built new and redeveloped apartments, offices and shops. The first condominiums are under construction in the Rombro Building, a converted garment factory.

A vacant building in Elkridge was heavily damaged last night in a one-alarm blaze that was under investigation as "suspicious in nature," the Howard County Department of Fire and Rescue Services reported. The fire was reported at 8:30 p.m. in the 5800 block of Main St. About 25 firefighters brought the blaze under control in 20 minutes, and no one was injured, said department spokesman William E. Mould. The one-story frame building, about 1,500 square feet, had formerly been used as offices, Mould said.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. military leaders intensified their get-tough campaign yesterday by dropping some of their most powerful bombs on vacant buildings in Baghdad and offering a $10 million reward for the capture of former general Izzat Ibrahim, the top remaining Iraqi fugitive after Saddam Hussein. The new campaign, which began this week and is described by U.S. military officials as a "show of force," follows a series of attacks in which insurgents have frustrated U.S.-led coalition soldiers by launching increasingly deadly attacks and then melting into the landscape.