Arts and culture : Development News

A nonprofit developer has purchased a vacant building on North Avenue that it hopes to transform into restaurants, galleries, artists studios and theater space within three years.

Jubilee Baltimore is talking to Joe Squared’s Joe Edwardsen about the possibility of his opening a Mexican restaurant at the 10 E. North Ave. property, Edwardsen and Jubilee President Charlie Duff say. The developer is also in talks with Single Carrot Theatre, which has been scouting for a space with more seating capacity.

Jubilee Baltimore Inc. bought 10 E. North Ave. from Greater Grace Church at a public city auction this month for $93,000.  The state estimates the land and 67,000-square-foot building is worth more than $2 million, public records show.

The eventual transformation of the three-story building will require a major rehab, Duff says. He doesn’t yet have a cost estimate as to what the renovation will cost.

“North Avenue needs cool things happening,” Duff says. “There isn’t enough space in Station North – that’s why we bought this building. We want to make it one of the key arts and entertainment building in Baltimore.”

Writer: Julekha Dash
Sources: Charlie Duff, Jubilee Baltimore; Joe Edwardsen, Joe Squared

Two theater managers are scouting the west side and the Station North Arts and Entertainment District for a performance space that can hold its new arts organization.

J. Buck Jabaily and Philip Arnoult have launched Baltimore Open Theatre with the goal of reaching younger audiences through the use of social media. (See related story). The Robert W. Deutsch Foundation has committed $50,000 in seed money and a $150,000 challenge grant for the venture.

Jabaily, one of the founders of Single Carrot Theatre, says he needs a 7,500-square-foot space that can seat 160. Other requirements include tall ceilings -- at least 16-feet high -- and no pillars that would obstruct the view. Since Baltimore Open Theatre will host plays, dance and other performances, they need a spot that is flexible and can be adapted for different uses.

“We’re open to non-traditional spaces,” Jabaily says. The space doesn’t have to be a theater currently, though it should be easily converted into one without a huge capital investment.

“We don’t have the finances to gut something,” he says. Arnoult, who founded the Theatre Project 40 years ago, says he hopes to commit to a space in the next month.

Writer; Julekha Dash
Sources: Buck Jabaily and Philip Arnoult, Baltimore Open Theatre.

The Maryland Institute College of Art is renovating a building for graduate programs that anchors North Avenue in the Station North Arts and Entertainment District.

Scheduled to be completed fall of 2012, the renovations to Studio Center will include a new main lobby and gallery area, café, photography studio and lecture hall. MICA has hired Whiting Turner as the general contractor and Cho Benn Holback+Associates as its architect for the 120,000-square-foot building.

Some renovations began in the summer with new glass windows and landscaping to the building’s front entrance, which faces North Avenue.

Sprucing up the building will show that there’s “more life going on in North Avenue,” says Ben Stone, executive director of the Station North Arts and Entertainment District. “Whenever one person invests in an area, other people take notice."

Recent renovations to the Load of Fun gallery and Joe Squared pizza’s addition of outdoor seating, combined with the MICA renovations, ought to breathe more life into that section of North Avenue, Stone says.

Writer: Julekha Dash
Sources: Ben Stone, Station North; MICA

Baltimore’s Contemporary Museum is moving into a larger space on Charles Street that will give it more room to host exhibits.

The museum will move in January to 505 N. Charles St., the former Craig Flinner Gallery. The spot is one-third larger than its former Centre Street location next to the Walters Art Museum, which is expanding into this space.

The 5,000 square foot space will give it double the exhibit space of its old venue, Contemporary Museum Executive Director Sue Spaid says. It received $10,000 from Downtown Partnership of Baltimore's Operation: Storefront initiative that aims to fill vacant spots in the city.

Spaid says she likes the location because it is close to Mount Vernon attractions the George Peabody Library, the Baltimore Basilica and the park.

The museum has a $350,000 operating budget and eight-person staff, seven of whom work part-time. Its upcoming exhibits include a retrospective of environmental artist Patricia Johanson.

Writer: Julekha Dash
Source: Sue Spaid, Contemporary Museum

City design officials could give the green light for a proposed Ripley’s Believe It Or Not museum to open at Harborplace within the next month.

Ripley’s staff put forth a new proposal that reduces the size of their signage and puts the sea creature Chessie on the mall’s second-floor porch. The original plan was to put the 3-D Chessie on the roof, which met with resistance from the city’s Urban Design and Review Panel (UDARP) because it was not in keeping with the look of the downtown shopping center.

“They came in with a scheme that is more doable,” says Robert Quilter of Ripley’s. “It’s definitely on the right track. It’s much more respectful of Harborplace architecture. They’re definitely going to have a presence there," says Quilter, an architect in the city's planning department.

Ripley’s told BmoreMedia that it hopes to open the museum by summer to take advantage of the tourist season.

Known for displaying oddities like the world’s largest sushi roll, the world’s smallest car, and an engraved human skull, Ripley’s operates 31 museums in 18 North American cities. The locations include Atlantic City, San Francisco, San Antonio, and Ocean City, Maryland.


Writer: Julekha Dash
Source: Bob Quilter, Baltimore City

A restaurant with a waterfront view and seasonal menu will open by September at the Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park. Designed by Patrick Sutton, the 75-seat Vu at Living Classrooms will feature a menu crafted by Corks' Jerry Pellegrino and cost more than $900,000 to build.

Foundation staff are calling the Vu a "seed-to-plate" restaurant, because it will serve produce grown at Living Classrooms Foundation's after-school gardening program, says Richard Slingluff, the nonprofit's facilities manager. That program is known as Baltimore Urban Gardening With Students, or BUGS.

"We're excited to work with our students to get as much student-grown produce to be served at a high-end restaurant one block away," Slingluff says.

The first-floor restaurant will feature floor-to-ceiling windows facing the Domino Sugar factory and Fort McHenry, Living Classrooms CEO James Piper Bond says.

The restaurant will hopefully bring in revenue to support the maritime park, Bond says.

On Mondays, restaurant employees will provide hospitality and culinary training to Living Classrooms' students. The nonprofit oversees after-school and job training programs for at-risk youth.

"It's a beautiful space on the water," Pellegrino says. "How can you beat that?"


Writer: Julekha Dash
Sources: James Piper Bond, Richard Slingluff, Living Classrooms; Jerry Pellegrino, Corks

Single Carrot Theatre has teamed up with a sound design software company to hunt for real estate in the Station North Arts and Entertainment District to accommodate the growing theater troupe.

Teaming up with Figure 53 LLC will enable the two entities to share resources -- from a copy machine to graphic artists, Single Carrot Executive Director Elliott Rauh says.

Single Carrot will make the move as early as July 2012, when its lease at 122 W. North Ave. is up. Figure 53, which would provide the capital to buy a 10,000-square-foot building, could move sooner if it finds the right space, Figure 53's Christopher Ashworth says.

The Baltimore software firm wants a space that holds a lab where it can test new products. One product in development is Tixato, an online ticket sale application for smaller theater troupes like Single Carrot.

Rauh says he is looking for a space that can seat between 75 and 99. Its current space seats 50 and is at 85 percent capacity.

"We're stuck in a glass ceiling if we can't get more earned income," Rauh says.

Single Carrot's long-term vision is to grow its budget from $211,00 to $500,000 and to do so it will need to receive more earned income. And it doesn't want to raise ticket prices, Rauh says.

The upstart theater company was founded by friends from the University of Colorado who chose Baltimore as a home after scouring 50 cities. It currently has five employees, four of whom work part-time.

Figure 53 employs six. "Billy Elliott," "South Pacific," and other Broadway shows have used its software.


Writer: Julekha Dash
Sources: Elliott Rauh, Christopher Ashworth

Howard County now has its own Jack Black.

Columbia residents Tim and Cassie France-Kelly have started a new music instruction school that will hopefully inspire kids to form their own rock bands and keep playing their instruments longer.

The Kellys spent $100,000 to open Let There Be Rock School at 9051 Red Branch Rd. in Columbia. Half a dozen music instructors offer
lessons in bass, guitar, keyboards, drums, audio recording, and being a DJ. The weekly lessons include teaching kids how to play with a group.

The couple learned that playing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," wouldn't keep their son Mason, 10, interested in his guitar lessons, Tim France-Kelly says. Rather, the only way Mason would stick with it is if he found other students he could play with and if the music was more along the lines of, say, Green Day.  

So the couple took Mason to a sister Let There Be Rock School in Frederick and found that performing in a band made him eager to practice because he didn't want to disappoint his bandmates, France-Kelly says. A third school is located in Folsom, Pa. The Central Howard County location will hopefully be a draw for parents, France-Kelly says.

"There are talented kids who get bored with music lessons," France-Kelly says. We want to give them a fun place to play music."

With 10 students so far, the owners hope to sign up 60 by summer's end and 150 by the end of the year.


Writer: Julekha Dash
Sources: Tim and Cassie France-Kelly

The Creative Alliance at the Patterson will toast a new bar May 14 expected generate more revenue for the performing arts venue and bring more commercial activity to Highlandtown.

Known for its quirky and eclectic programs that have included everything from African drumming to music from Appalachia, the Patterson has been an economic engine driving the revitalization of the East Baltimore neighborhood.

The Marquee Lounge will seat 16 at its white marble bar and contain 10, two-seat tables in a space that formerly held storage. The $200,000 to build the lounge comes from city bonds and the Creative Alliance, says H. Alexander Satorie-Robinson, chief development officer of the Creative Alliance.

Initially open just on Fridays and Saturdays, the Marquee Lounge will eventually extend its hours and serve food by next year, lounge manager Andre Mazelin says.

The second Thursday of each month, the Creative Alliance will host a local supper club called Food = Art. Highlighting a different chef each time, the event is organized by Puffs and Pastries' Anisha Jagtap and Baltimore tech entrepreneur Heather Sarkissian. The dinner series will hopefully serve as a launching pad for more events that showcase the art of making food, wine, and beer, Creative Alliance Program Director Megan Hamilton says.

The bar's opening will hopefully make the Patterson an economic and cultural anchor in Highlandtown, she says. "It will add to the vibrancy of the Highlandtown commercial district."

As a former bartender, Hamilton says she thought that drinks were a good way to bring income to the nonprofit. Designed by Kroiz Architecture and PI:KL Studios, the bar is expected to initially bring in $50,000 a year in revenue.

The nonprofit Creative Alliance reopened the Patterson, a former movie theater, as an arts center in 2003, The facility hosts gallery exhibits, a media lab, a 180-seat theater, a media lab and arts workshops.

Sources: H. Alexander Satorie-Robinson, Megan Hamilton, Andre Mazelin; Creative Alliance
Writer: Julekha Dash

An $11 million apartment building will begin construction in the Station North Arts and Entertainment District this year, bringing more life to an area undergoing revitalization. 

The 74-unit Lillian Jones apartments will break ground at the end of the year and take about one year to complete, says Jim French, president of French Development Co. The Baltimore real estate firm, which specializes in nonprofit and community-sponsored projects, won the development rights after the Baltimore Housing department issued a bid.

The Station North district is home to the Charles Theatre, Tapas Teatro, and a number of galleries and theater troupes, including Single Carrot Theatre and Annex Theater and Gallery. It will lose one of its anchors, Everyman Theatre Co., when the group moves to Baltimore's west side next year.

Located at Greenmount Avenue and E. Hoffman Street, the apartments replace vacant land and homes.

"The idea is to provide better housing for people in the community and create more life on the street by having people living on Greenmount Avenue," French says. The economic conditions aren't strong enough to build market-rate housing, but hopefully in time they will be.

The apartments will include one, two, and three-bedroom units. They are available to individuals and families who pull in 50 percent below the Baltimore metro area media income, or around $41,000 for a family of four.

Designed by Cho Benn Holback+Associates Inc., the four-story building includes a courtyard and exterior made of brick, cement and glass.

Sources: Jim French, French Co.; David Benn, Cho Benn Holback+Associates
Writer: Julekha Dash

The Baltimore Museum of Art has chosen Ziger/Snead to design its biggest capital project in its history, a $24 million renovation to be completed in 2014.

A total of 11 architecture firms competed for the project, of which the BMA selected five for its short list. Those firms were Ayers Saint Gross, Design Collective, Inc,. GWWO Inc./Architects, Ziger/Snead, and RTKL Associates Inc.

The BMA chose Ziger/Snead based on its clarity of vision and design and their success in renovating both historic and contemporary buildings. Its projects include the Maryland Institute College of Art Brown Center and the Frederick Douglas-Isaac Myers Maritime Park and Museum.

The BMA renovation is expected to create 185 construction and other jobs.

The renovation will include upgrades to visitor amenities, infrastructure improvements, and better displays of the museum's 90,000 works of art. Two new roofs and a building automation system to improve care of the museum's art are part of the upgrades.

The project will be funded in part by a $10 million multi-year commitment from the state and $2.5 million in bonds from Baltimore City.

Writer: Julekha Dash
Source: Anne Mannix, BMA

A Baltimore jewelry company that has gotten national exposure will expand its retail presence in the coming year.

American Estate Jewelry will expand its retail presence to Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Texas, Atlanta, and Chicago, hopefully by the end of the year to catch Christmas sales, founder Carolyn O'Keefe says. Next year, O'Keefe says she hopes to sell the jewelry in London and Paris. She also hopes to sell in a Baltimore store.

The company's trademark silver cuff has been featured recently in RobbReport.com and O magazine, which featured actress Mandy Moore sporting the bracelet.

American Estate sells bracelets, brooches, and pendants, which start at $400.

The jewelry is made using a technique known as repousse, in which a metal design is crafted by hammering from the reverse side.
American Estate's line is sold in a handful of places now, including the Tiny Jewel Box in Washington, D.C., and Works Gallery in New York.  The jewelry is also sold on the company's website.

"The designs are so timeless," O'Keefe says. "It's not a trendy thing I've got to hop on right away."

O'Keefe started the company out of a desire to create heirloom quality silver jewelry in honor of her mother who used to wear an antique silver cuff. She teamed up with New York jewelry designer Michael Galmer, who worked at Tiffany & Co. for 20 years.

"There's a time commitment so many aren't willing to make," O'Keefe says of the artisan jewelry. "I hope it's something I can pass onto my children."

Writer: Julekha Dash
Source: Carolyn O'Keefe

Photos courtesy of Carolyn O'Keefe

Baltimore will get a new museum devoted to black athletes in the Northwest section of the city that officials hope will jumpstart the area's revitalization.

The Druid Heights Community Development Corp. is building the Negro Baseball Museum and Restaurant at 2101-11 Pennsylvania Ave., the site of the former jazz club that hosted legendary performers Billie Holiday and John Coltrane. The group hopes the museum will bring jobs and visitors to the neglected area.

The CDC will put out a bid in June for a construction firm and expects to begin building the museum later in the summer, says Roscoe Johnson, Druid Heights' director of real estate development. The Black Athletes and Lost Legends Association, a Baltimore nonprofit, will operate the museum and an adjacent caf�.

"Hopefully it will attract other businesses to the area," Johnson says. "It's very important that we do this right and it looks good."

Funding for the $9 million museum comes from the state, State Farm Insurance Cos., federal New Market Tax Credits, and foundations.
Baltimore's urban design panel gave final approval for the museum April 14. Druid Heights won the right to develop the project after the Baltimore Development Corp. sought out proposals to redevelop the former Sphinx Club.

The 14,000-square-foot museum and Negro League Caf� will create as many as 85 jobs, Johnson says.

The museum will focus on black athletes from Baltimore in a variety of sports, including boxing, football, basketball and baseball. It will also highlight black athletes who comprised the Negro League, the black baseball players who had their separate teams before the sport was integrated.

Writer: Julekha Dash
Source: Roscoe Johnson, Druid Heights Community Development Corp.

The Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts is looking to spruce up its aging performance space in Annapolis.

The theater and auditorium, which date to 1932, will get new seating and carpeting and upgraded acoustics as part of the multiyear plan, says Donna Anderson, the nonprofit's vice president of external affairs.

Details, such as the cost of the facelift and completion date, are still being worked out. The arts organization is still in negotiations with an architecture firm to handle the job.

The renovations would include the 850-seat theater and another room beneath it that holds classes, recitals, meetings, and post-theater receptions. As a former high school gymnasium, the room has its limitations, Anderson says.

Leaders at the arts organization want to spruce up that space and add a loading dock to the theater wing.

The Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts is home to four resident companies -- Annapolis Chorale, Annapolis Opera, Annapolis Symphony Orchestra and the Ballet Theatre of Maryland. The nonprofit also holds an artist-in-residence program and art, music and dance classes.

Writer: Julekha Dash
Source: Donna Anderson, Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts

Maryland may once again roll out the red carpet for Hollywood productions.

State legislators are weighing a bill that would dramatically raise the amount of rebates Maryland offers film crews from $1 million to $15 million.

That would make the state more competitive for silver screen productions, after losing film business to other states. Maryland has cut its incentives over the last few years from a high of $7 million in 2007 to $1 million this year.

Sponsored by Democratic Sen. Edward J. Kasemeyer, Senate Bill 672 would raise the film incentives' budget to $15 million. Kasemeyer represents Baltimore and Howard Counties. Del. Melony G. Griffith, D-Prince George's County, has sponsored the corresponding House Bill.

The Senate bill passed the Budget and Taxation committee. House Bill 1148 is being heard by the Ways and Means committee. Under the incentive program, film crews that spend at least $500,000 receive up to a 25 percent rebate on their expenses incurred in the state.

The money would get Maryland back on a level playing field with other states, says Jed Dietz, director of the Maryland Film Festival.

"It would make a huge difference in this industry," Dietz says.

Film advocates decry losing out on "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." The $150 million budget movie starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett was set to shoot in Baltimore, but filmmakers rewrote the script and chose Louisiana, which has no cap on the amount of money it spends annually on film crews.

Though the state is staring at a massive deficit, growing the film incentive program will reward the state financially by bringing jobs and spending, Dietz says.

According to Sage Policy Group, film crews generated $158 million in economic impact in Maryland in fiscal year 2006 when funding was at its highest.

Writer: Julekha Dash
Sources: Maryland legislature; Jed Dietz, Maryland Film Festival