Harrison Development is utilizing funding from Baltimore City’s new Scattered Site Tax Increment Financing (TIF) bond program to support continued redevelopment in the historic Upton neighborhood. TIF is a public financing tool that leverages future property tax increases to support the rehabilitation of vacant housing units and construction of new housing on vacant land. Neighborhood Impact Investment Fund (NIIF) is providing an $800,000 bridge loan to be repaid by funding from the TIF and from a Baltimore City Department of Housing and Community Development grant. By bridging the timing gap between incurred costs and receipt of the proceeds, the loan enables Harrison Development to begin necessary public infrastructure improvements to ultimately deliver new opportunities for homeownership.
Once nationally recognized as a center for Black culture, music, and civil rights leadership, the Upton community has experienced vacant housing and low homeownership rates in its more recent history. The Upton Planning Committee developed the Upton Gateway project, a vision for a strategic real estate initiative to reclaim the neighborhood. Harrison Development is undertaking the project to transform whole blocks of long-vacant rowhomes into historically preserved, for-sale housing.
The initial phase, known as Upton Gateway I, is comprised of 38 for-sale rowhomes, along with a newly built pocket park and dog park for community building and resident engagement. Most of the houses have already sold. This new phase, Upton Gateway II, encompasses public infrastructure work and ultimately the new construction of 20-22 rowhomes on vacant parcels that held dilapidated buildings previously demolished by the City. From eliminating vacancy to launching innovative homeownership initiatives, the Upton Gateway Development project seeks to provide new pathways to generational wealth.