West North Avenue on the rise as the old Carlton Apartments come to life
Other developers failed at restoring the old Carlton Apartments, a Reservoir Hill corner landmark that seemed to defy an easy redemption.
You wouldn’t know its tortured past today, however. This grand, circa 1900, Roman brick, V-shaped home to 12 new units is an example of what good intentions and hard work can accomplish.
Enter Alex Aaron, a developer born in Northern Virginia and a Howard University graduate.
“Reservoir Hill is special to me,” said Aaron. “We brought our three kids home from the hospital to my home on Eutaw Place. I loved it because it’s close to I-83, I loved it because it was not 100% developed and I loved the architecture.”
The Carlton Apartments score on the architecture. This roomy corner building made of an iron-spot Roman-style brick has a big round turret and conical roof. It is part of the long row of homes along the 2200 block of Brookfield Avenue at Reservoir Street.
Aaron admits this undertaking was not in his future, at first. His development business, Blank Slate, is nearby in the old Fiske Catering building at 1758 Park Avenue.
“When I drove over Ducatel Street to Brookfield, I never thought in my wildest dreams I’d be renovating the Carlton,” said Aaron.
The project, recently completed, took $2.6 million. Previous developers, four of them, attempted to restore this challenging (it had been vacant for decades) structure, but failed.
“The Carlton was in receivership and the city of Baltimore was keeping a strong eye on what its future would be,” said Aaron.
The historic restoration costs were high; but in stepped a new, multi-neighborhood entity, the state of Maryland created West North Avenue Development Authority. This group awarded a grant of $250,000 to defray the extra costs associated with a historic 1900 building that is something of a community centerpiece.
“We have a unique position in that the General Assembly can create with General Obligation Bonds,” said Chad Williams, executive director of the West North Avenue Development Authority. “One of our goals is to eliminate vacancy along North Avenue.”
The authority’s jurisdiction extends along the long corridor, from the 600 block through the street’s 3200 block, from Reservoir Hill to Walbrook.
The authority is working in temporary offices on the campus of Coppin State University.
In the past two decades Reservoir Hill has achieved a quiet and determined renaissance. Blocks and pockets of vacant and abandoned homes are now selling in the $400,000 category. A large piece of the community is in the early stages of a rebuild at Reservoir Square, North and Park avenues.
The streets are tidy. A former drug trafficking commercial section, along Whitelock Street, was demolished and achieved the desired effect. It is now a community garden.
The Carlton apartments overlook one flank of the Dorothy I. Height Elementary School, which opened in 2018. Before the apartments were restored, the presence of an ugly vacant apartment house did not do the new school any credit.
The state is already heavily invested in this neighborhood. It spent $33 million to build the Height school and its campus.
The school takes its name from a past president of the National Council of Negro Women, who died in Washington in 2010. It replaced the old School 61 — once known as the John Eager Howard School which sat along Koenig Street, a thoroughfare that vanished as changes swept through Reservoir Hill.
“We are a creative state of Maryland entity that can act as a venture capitalist for the investment in and renovation of West North Avenue’s housing, transportation and green spaces,” said Williams. “Our creativity is the only thing that can restrict us.”
