Warehouse Is Latest Investor Target Around East Baltimore Public Housing Redevelopment
An East Baltimore warehouse is the latest property to trade hands near a massive redevelopment of former public housing sites.
The 18K SF property at 201 South Central Ave. sold for $875K to an investment group led by Donavon Murphy, the Baltimore Business Journal reports.
Gold and Co. lists the property on its website as under contract. However, broker Jim Chivers told the BBJ that Murphy purchased the property and plans to convert the asset to office space and light industrial uses.
Maryland property records list the building’s most recent owner as an entity that lists a mailing address shared with A&R Development, which bought the warehouse in 2012 for $385K.
The property is surrounded by the ongoing $1B Perkins, Somerset, Oldtown Transformation Plan, which has drawn investor interest to the area.
Earlier this month, the city spending board approved a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement with CSI Support & Development, which is expected to purchase the Waters Tower at 1400 East Madison St. The nonprofit told the city it expects to spend $56.8M to buy and rehab the 11-story, 203-unit low-income apartment building.
The former Soujourner-Douglass College property at 200 North Central Ave. sold for $3.35M months after another entity purchased the same asset for $7.2M, according to online state property records.
In June, Cross Street Partners and Beatty Development Group said they acquired a historic trolley barn at 130 South Central Ave. and were considering transforming it to host coworking, office, restaurant, gym, retail and workforce training space.
In October 2022, Focus Development paid nearly $3M for the former Baltimore campus of Stratford University along Central Avenue, which it plans to turn into a multifamily development.
The $1B transformation plan’s development team includes prominent local and national developers, including the Henson Development Co., Mission First, McCormack Baron Salazar, Beatty Development Group and Cross Street Partners.
The plan calls for redeveloping roughly 244 acres of East Baltimore, and its goal is to fill a void of investment disconnecting downtown, Harbor East, Harbor Point, Fells Point and the Johns Hopkins Hospital campus. Developers expect to deliver 1,616 new multifamily units, 30K SF of office space and more than 153K SF of retail.
