Fredrick Avenue plays host to several different housing types from Single Family to Multi Family Homes, from Rental Complexes to blocks of solid Home Ownership. Just above Fredrick Avenue is Edmondson Avenue. Both roads and neighboring Communities have their shares of challenges and assets. Through the demolition of Uplands, the West Baltimore MARC Redevelopment, the Red Line, and quite possibly the redevelopment of the Road to Nowhere Edmondson Avenue will be a highly sought after destination. Now where does that leave Fredrick Avenue?
The boldest initiative on Edmondson Avenue is the redevelopment of Uplands, once a crime ridden Public Housing Development that has been demolished to make way for close to 1500 new mixed income units that will usher in gentrification for Edmondson Village, Rognel Heights, and Allendale to with an increase in Home Ownership which long time residents are watching slip away. Neighborhoods like West Hills, Ten Hills, and Hunting Ridge will be as sought after as Roland Park and Guilford but with a better price tag.
Now what will the redevelopment of Uplands do for Fredrick Avenue? Not much if anything. But I'm not giving up on Fredrick Avenue that easily. No I'm not going to change Uplands so it somehow focuses itself on Fredrick Avenue instead of Edmondson. I'm going to take a look at Fredrick Avenue and the Communities served by it and give Fredrick Avenue its own "Uplands." The portion of Fredrick Avenue I will focus on will be west of Caton Avenue. It will include the neighborhoods of Westgate, Tremont, Irvington, Beechfield, Yale Heights, and Ten Hills.
The first Uplands of Fredrick Avenue will encompass Jamestown, Carriage House Apartments, North Bend Elementary and West Baltimore Middle. Like Uplands, the aforementioned properties and Schools will be demolished in favor of mixed income housing with a diverse range of options. The upper of end of North Bend and Rock Glen Roads will be "Maisonette" Duplexes that look the surrounding single family homes in the area.
The middle part of the new neighborhood will be town homes. It will be where the Schools are now. It will be integrated with Town Homes off of Fredrick Avenue between North Bend and Rock Glen Roads.
The final part of the North Bend/Rock Glen section of the Fredrick Avenue Uplands will be three to four story Multi Family enclosed elevator Apartments/Condos with underground parking. This will be closest to Fredrick Avenue with Buildings facing it. Fredrick Avenue will be enhanced with a landscaped median, additional lighting, new traffic signals, and like all the roads will be repaved and the sidewalks re-cemented. This new Community will be called "Rock Glen Landing."
The next part of the Fredrick Avenue Uplands will be in Beechfield. It will encompass Beechfield Elementary/Middle, Coventry Manor and the Coral Gardens Apartments and Town Homes which straddles Beechfield and Yale Heights. Closest to Fredrick Avenue where Beechfield Elementary/Middle sits and directly behind (Coral Gardens Apartments on Parkton Road)
will be the same enclosed elevator multi family apartment/condo buildings like those in "Rock Glen Landing."
Coral Gardens Apartments (along Colleen Road) and Coventry Manor Apartments (not pictured) will be town homes. Some of Coventry Manor will be "Mansions" which look like large single family homes bit house four dwellings.
Coral Gardens Town Homes will be redeveloped as Town Homes with a 100% Home Ownership Rate. The Beechfield/Yale Heights section of the Fredrick Avenue Uplands will be called "Beechfield Pointe."
Next stop lands us in Irvington and Tremont. The Woodington West Apartments will be redeveloped as town homes known as Irvington Crossing.
The Hinting Hills Apartments in Tremont will also be redeveloped as Town Homes.
The four way intersection of Uplands Parkway, Pen Lucy Road, and Beechfield Avenue will be converted into a five way intersection with a roundabout extending Uplands Parkway to Fredrick Avenue. This will usher in new development connecting Tremont to Irvington. This will also be town homes named "Irvington Overlook."
Fredrick Avenue itself is a mix of row homes and undeveloped land. I've proposed Multi Family Apartments/Condos along the undeveloped portions. This may be good to tie all the new development together. The condition of the existing row homes vary. Some will be redeveloped while others won't. Now I'm sure you're wondering how I came up with a broad mix of housing types for the redevelopment of Fredrick Avenue. Well, as the name of the post suggests; I got it from the Uplands Master Plan. So Fredrick Avenue; Meet Your Uplands!
What do you think of when you think about Union Square? Frankly, I don't know what you the reader thinks because I'm not psychic but I'll tell you what I think. I think of a "Gentleman's Community" with large row homes whose piece de resistance was and is the public square in the middle of the neighborhood. This was one of the first suburbs to date of Baltimore. Hard to believe Union Square was once considered a suburb right? Well, a lot of the City's wealthy Merchants flocked here to get away from the smog that was Downtown. Sounds suburban to me.
Union Square remained a destination even post annexation and "suburbs" sprang up like crab grass to its west, that is until the 1960s. The 1960s was when Baltimore's flight to the suburbs was in full force. New "slum eliminating" efforts that failed miserably like Lexington Terrace and Murphy Homes scared residents of Union Square away in droves. This decade was Union Square's biggest decline.
Boarded up row homes like this one became much more common in the decades following the 1960s. As Compared to other neighborhoods that fell into decline as a flight to the suburbs victim, Union Square fared quite well. Crime wasn't nearly as bad as its neighbors to the west, north, and south. Union Square's biggest enemy was and is population or lack there of. 
The gentrification of the Inner Harbor did not effect Union Square very much. The barrier known as MLK Boulevard could have been to blame for this. Now not everybody left Union Square, through it all Union Square remaining residents made sure their neighborhood and its prized public square did not decay as badly as others.
The public square was probably Union Square's biggest saving grace. If one walks the streets of Union Square (I have) you will see that the healthiest housing stock has frontage to the square itself. The H.L. Mencken House is located right on the square on Hollins St. which has sparked interest in the Community, not enough for a population surge. The square, however remains to be an invaluable asset as residents use it as a gathering place.
The gentrification of the Inner Harbor finally crossed MLK Boulevard into Pigtown and Hollins Market in the 2000s. Both neighborhoods received a population gain as old boarded row homes became populated once again. Pigtown even has new housing known as Camden Crossing built on an old industrial site. It looks very suburban and doesn't go along with Pigtown's smaller housing stock but has brought new residents into Pigtown none the less.
Now Union Square did begin to see signs of new life before the Real Estate Market crashed although not nearly as drastic as its neighbors to the east. I do think had the Market not crashed Union Square would be seeing the same population surge that Hollins Market and Pigtown were blessed with. Now when the Market comes back I also believe that Union Square will see its day in the sun once again. However, I do see a major hurdle that Hollins Market and Pigtown didn't face. The housing stock in Union Square is larger, therefore the asking prices of vacants will probably be higher and the sheer cost of renovations will be higher because it's more house.
Now how do we solve this and make all of Union Square look like the homes pictured above? Since both Hollins Market and Pigtown still have vacants we price the Union Square vacants the same as the smaller ones in the aforementioned neighborhoods. Then comes the renovations, something that buyers of vacant homes will have to roll up their sleeves and tackle. Well, in order to pay for said renovations I imagine most buyers will have to take out a loan. Now loans are made and broken through interest rates. So rehabbers in Union Square will be given special below market low interest loans which will make their payments on par with smaller homes.
Now Union Square shouldn't warrant much new housing but pictured here is a vacant lot with blighted homes surrounding it. This is an example of where new housing is the only option. Now, what we don't want is another Camden Crossing where the new housing sticks out like a sore thumb. New Housing should be built to look like a carbon copy of the existing housing stock. It should look like it's been there the whole time.
The western end of the square itself is another spot for new housing. Stuart Hill Elementary does not coincide the neighborhood. With City Schools facing a surplus of classroom space (their only surplus) they can afford to lose Stuart Hill and have its student body redistricted to either Fredrick or James McHenry Elementary in neighboring communities. New housing in place of Stuart Hill should again look like it's been there the whole time.
Now I titled the post that Union Square is a once and future "Gentleman's Community" suggesting that at one point it wasn't. Well, the deeper I immersed myself in Union Square both in the past and present I came to find out that it always has been one. There have always been residents who know the Community's strengths and their voices will finally be heard. Union Square, your rebirth starts now!
