The past year has been a period of planning and fundraising for the lot renovation at the southeast corner of Park and North Avenues, all part of a project to rejuvenate the space between Bolton Hill and Reservoir Hill called Unity@Park Avenue.
The rejuvenating began with the murals designed and painted on row house walls on either side of Park Avenue by local artist Ernest Shaw in 2021. Around the same time, Baltimore-based EnviroCollab created a design sketch as a vision for the renovated corner, with community input.
In 2023, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources awarded a grant to flesh out the design for a technical blueprint to implement the lot renovation. Throughout 2024, EnviroCollab has assisted the landscape engineering firm CityScape in producing the engineered design, which is nearly complete.
In April, the West North Avenue Development Authority (WNADA) provided Unity@Park Avenue with $250,000 in funding to implement the renovation plans, with an additional $65,000 awarded by the France-Merrick Foundation in June. Later in the summer, the project garnered $5,000 more from a Baltimore National Heritage Area grant. The funds are held by the Midtown Community Fund, the nonprofit development arm of the Midtown Community Benefits District, which is acting as the fiscal sponsor.
A request for proposals from contractors to perform the demolition, regrading, hardscaping, lighting, and landscaping in line with the engineered design should be released soon, with the work expected to begin early in the new year and completed roughly three months later.
-Alex Aaron, Chris Kingsley, David Nyweide
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