The complex, which once printed baseball cards for Topps, maps for National Geographic, and even Confederate money, has been sitting empty for decades, but was finally given the green light for a renovation costing almost $26m.
Strong City Baltimore, City Life Historic Properties, and Cross Street Partners are teaming up to redevelop the historic structure into a mixed-use facility called the Center for Neighborhood Innovation. It will house a center for adult literacy, researchers, nonprofit organizations, retail spaces, event spaces, and social enterprises. A workforce incubator slanted toward training people for the construction industry will also have space in the building.
Cross Street Partners' CEO, Bill Struever, said one of the main goals of the project is:
“[To] try to take the desolation and create magic with a place to live and work and create.”
Cross Street has renovated other historic structures with good results. They include a former Proctor & Gamble soap factory that is now the headquarters of Under Armour. Struever says the new locations provide more jobs now than the old ones did at their most successful. He believes the new project will have the same results.
A brochure printing company can create a booklet to give to prospective tenants before projects like this commence.