Vacant Buildings

Council approves self-storage proposal for vacant buildings The Anne Arundel County Council unanimously passed legislation Monday night to help revitalize several blighted commercial areas. The bill by Councilwoman Pamela G. Beidle would allow vacant buildings to be transformed into self-storage facilities, as long as they meet guidelines that prohibit outside doors and restrict expansion. The bill also would allow mixed commercial and residential development on properties within 15 designated revitalization zones.

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.

When Anne Arundel Medical Center relocated just outside Annapolis more than a year ago, residents who lived near the old hospital site downtown worried about the riff-raff they feared would be drawn to the vacant buildings. Who knew they would get Hollywood? Next month, Disney's Touchstone Pictures is expected to take over part of the old hospital to shoot scenes for Ladder 49, an action film starring Joaquin Phoenix and John Travolta. Filming for Ladder 49 begins in Baltimore this month.

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.

PHILADELPHIA - Bulldozers may soon come to be as omnipresent here as cheesesteaks. Seeking to reverse a 50-year population decline, this city is embarking on a program to tear down 14,000 abandoned buildings over the next five years, clearing land for the development of housing that would attract new residents. Officials describe the $295 million program, dubbed the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative and funded by city bonds, as a lifeline for long-neglected communities - and, by extension, for the city itself.

Carroll officials have officially taken the first step toward acquiring a vacant building at Springfield Hospital Center in Sykesville, which the county hopes to remodel into a long-term drug treatment center. The county would lease from the state or assume ownership of the Jones Building, on the hospital's main road. Built in 1948, the five-story brick building has emerged as the least costly option for a 30-bed treatment center for patients ages 18 to 25. With 32,000 square feet, the T-shaped brick building could be available soon.

TRULY wonderful tidings for Bolton Hill: The Maryland Institute, College of Art is buying a long-vacant Lafayette Street nursing home and will convert it into a residence hall. This news is cause for celebration throughout Baltimore's historic neighborhoods because Bolton Hill's growing popularity will eventually strengthen other preservation areas as well. Some of Bolton Hill's restored 19th-century townhouses have fetched such high prices recently that it is easy to forget the neighborhood was in danger of becoming a slum after World War II. Later, the 1964 acquisition of Mount Royal Station by the Maryland Institute, which at the time was a smallish regional art school, encouraged new homeowners to invest in the area.

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."

CONCERNED that a vacant nursing home has become a blight on Baltimore's Bolton Hill historic district, Mayor Martin O'Malley has indicated that his administration might explore the possibility of acquiring it by eminent domain so it can be put in the hands of an owner who will redevelop the property. During a social event in Bolton Hill this month, according to residents, the mayor indicated that he would consult with his staff on the feasibility of condemning the former Women's Hospital building at 140 W. Lafayette Ave. to expedite its redevelopment.