Residential Real Estate Developers break ground at Somerset Homes, the start of a $1B East Baltimore revival
by Mission First HousingBy Zach Phillips – Editorial Intern, Baltimore Business Journal
City officials, developers and residents crowded a tent set up in East Baltimore on Wednesday, making the air conditioned enclosure feel almost as hot as the nearly 100-degree day outside.
The gathering marked the official groundbreaking of a $30.1 million redevelopment of the former Somerset Homes site. When complete, it will bring 104 affordable or low-income units into the underinvested community located just north of Harbor East. The complex, 1234 McElderry Apartments, also marks the start of a larger $1 billion redevelopment known as the Perkins Somerset Old Town Transformation Plan.
Work on Somerset I is the culmination of five years of planning, said Dana Henson, a principal at Henson Development. However, the site has been vacant since the former Somerset homes were razed over a decade ago.
Henson Development is leading the project along with Mission First Housing Development Corp. under the name 1234 McElderry LLC.