Stalled for more than a decade – amid recession, allegations of bidding improprieties and litigation by displaced residents and landowners – the massive $239 million west Baltimore redevelopment project known as Uplands passed a major milestone Wednesday at the city Board of Estimates.

The Board approved Uplands’ master development and land disposition agreement, unveiling some new details about a project that has been touted as among the biggest redevelopment efforts in the mid-Atlantic but has never quite gotten off the ground.

That is about to change, it seems, following the Board’s action:

• The spending panel approved without discussion a $20.6 million Phase I plan, to begin this summer, as work commences on 104 rental units.
• A provision in the plan sets aside 77 of those units for families with incomes at or below 60 percent of the area median income. It also specifies that, under a 15-year-contract, the Housing Authority of Baltimore City will provide Section 8 vouchers for 40 former Uplands residents.
• The board also set up a revolving loan fund of $781,890 for the project’s Master Developer. The no-interest loans are to be paid back “as construction settlements occur on the different phases of the project over the course of the whole project.”

Among the sources of loans for Phase 1 of the project: Wells Fargo Bank, Baltimore City and the State of Maryland Rental Housing Program.

“Like Roland Park?”

The more than 100-acre site, located on Route 40 near Edmondson Village, is meant to replace the old Uplands Apartments, a 979-unit complex of publicly-subsidized apartments. Built by local developer Ralph Chiaro in 1948 on the site of a former private estate, the original Uplands complex has been through many incarnations.

In the post-war era, it was a place for young  couples to start a family. Then, as block-busting and white-flight transformed the Edmondson Village area, it became increasingly African-American and a haven for lower-income renters. The complex fell into disrepair, amid lawsuits alleging landlords were exploiting poorly-supervised federal housing programs. The city purchased Uplands from HUD in 2004. They paid $20.

Officials have said the new Uplands would feature affordable and market-rate housing, pitched to a diverse group of buyers. Design architect David Dixon told Baltimore City Paper in 2008 that it will be “an urban village” that would lift up the area and resemble Roland Park, with trees, grass and winding lanes.

In the Board’s agenda packet this week, Uplands was projected to include 1,101 apartments and houses, to be built over the next eight years. (The parcel is located on the south side of Edmondson Ave., between Old Frederick Rd. and North Athol Ave., across from the Edmondson Village Shopping Center.)

The housing includes single-family dwellings, rowhouses, duplexes and multi-apartment “mansionettes.” The official Uplands website describes parks, walking trails, a swim club and a state-of-the-art clubhouse with an Internet café and fitness center.

High Stakes, Powerful Players

One feature of the project that’s not on the website is its connection to politically-powerful, and sometimes controversial, public officials and developers. Former Prince George’s County Executive Wayne K. Curry has been involved in the project, as has Ronald H. Lipscomb’s Doracon Co.

(Lipscomb, who is no longer involved in the Uplands project, is the one-time boyfriend of former Mayor Sheila Dixon and was linked to the corruption charges that ended in Dixon’s indictment and resignation. His connection to the Uplands project raised eyebrows when the development group, including Doracon, was chosen despite the recommendation of an independent panel.)

As described now in the Board’s agenda packet, the project’s Master Developer is Uplands Visionaries, LLC, headed by Philadelphia-based Pennrose Properties and selected by the city in 2007. The other partners listed include Bozzuto Homes, Inc., which will construct the homes, as well as KMJ Uplands LLC, Harrison Development LLC, Scientia Uplands, LLC and Southwest Baltimore Community Development Corp.

Cryor Development LLC is also listed as a minority partner. Michael Cryor is the former chairman of the Maryland Democratic Party who heads a public relations firm in town.

Displaced Protest, But Eventually Give Way

Another reason for the slow pace of the project has been its legal troubles. One lawsuit was a class action filed by the ACLU on behalf of former Uplands tenants. Another setback came from allegations that the contracts for demolition and grading were awarded improperly.

There were also legal challenges by property owners in the so-called Triangle, the adjacent parcel of land between Swann Ave. and Old Frederick Rd., which was not part of the original Uplands parcel. The city moved to acquire 13 Triangle properties but some business owners there did not want to go.

The city’s expansion of the original parcel did not happen solely through condemnation. The New Psalmist Baptist Church property on Old Frederick Rd. was added via a swap deal and payment. The city agreed to give them $14 million in cash and a $2.4 million piece of land for them to rebuild on in Seton Park. What started out as a 52-acre project grew, by the end, to more than 100 acres.

By late Tuesday, on the eve of the Board of Estimates vote, it seemed as though pretty much all those impediments had been scraped away, literally. The aptly-named Uplands, on a high point on the western edge of the city, appeared to be largely graded and cleared, an immense swath of red dirt, redder in the sunset. The Triangle buildings were pretty much all demolished. Only a bombed-out looking gas station remained.

Monumental Paving & Excavating trucks and other construction vehicles were parked in a neat row near Edmondson Ave. Oddly, in between a couple of these vehicles, two large campaign signs for mayoral candidate Otis Rolley lay in a pile of trash.

A couple of workers driving a pick-up said that a lot of the infrastructure work was finished and the site was almost ready for the builders.