Guardian House is at last in the works near City Hall. The 66-unit apartment development converts three vacant, historic properties at 17-23 Gay St. and a parking lot at 10 S. Frederick St. into one complex with a portion set aside to rent to the city’s first responders. It will have apartments that range from 400 to 700 square feet in size, and a 10,000-square-foot gym created by sports complex experts at Coppermine will occupy retail space at street level. Developer Landmark Partners was selected after a 2018 request for proposals by the Baltimore Development Corp. to acquire and redevelop the properties. Jon Pannoni, Landmark president, said the project has been four years in the making and was slowed by the pandemic and supply chain issues, but demolition has started inside to gut the buildings for the apartment conversion. A groundbreaking ceremony is planned for Wednesday. Guardian House will offer a dozen, or about 20% of the units, to city first responders from the Baltimore Police Department and Baltimore Fire Department who earn less than 80% of the local median income. Those rents will be calculated closer to the development’s opening, Pannoni said on Tuesday. The Guardian House buildings first opened in 1905 and 1912, and the plan to repurpose them has been given a green light by the Commission for Historic and Architectural Preservation, or CHAP. Funding for the $25 million Guardian House development will include historic tax credits and grants and Landmark negotiated a deal to acquire the properties for about $1.24 million, Pannoni said. The city closed on the sale this summer. Bozzuto construction is heading the work at the site and the design was created by SM+P Architects. Local firm PI.KL Studio designed the gym space for Coppermine, Pannoni said.
Guardian House is expected to open in about 16 months.
You can read more about the groundbreaking here.