Revitalization of a historic police station provides salvation for new tenants in Baltimore’s Fells Point

by Laura Bailey, Managing Vice President, Community Finance, Capital One

Walk into the lobby of the new Fells Point Station in Baltimore and you would never guess that it’s mixed rate housing offering affordable and under market housing in one of America’s grittier East Coast cities.

In the center of the room, a contemporary gas-burning fireplace burns gently below a huge flat-screen TV mounted on a stone wall. A massive black and white photograph of the neighborhood covers another wall. There’s also modern furniture in shades of turquoise, brown and green welcome visitors, giving the place the feel of an upscale hotel lobby.

This scene is a far cry from what it was just a few years ago. For 19 years, it sat as a bombed-out shell—its roof had collapsed, and the entire building was in danger of crumbling to the ground. Today, the original 16,000-square-foot 1800s brick and masonry building is completely renovated, and an additional 37,000-square-foot addition is joined to it by a glass structure that serves as the lobby entrance. It’s the first new construction in this neighborhood—Baltimore’s oldest, and a major shipbuilding center in the 1700s and 1800s—in over 50 years.

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