The Mill No. 1 redevelopment along the Jones Falls
Standing on the banks of the Jones Falls waterway in the middle of Baltimore City on a slightly overcast day in May, I found myself pondering the age-old question about the timing of the chicken versus the egg. Or, a more relevant 21st century version: Which comes first – clean urban waterways or revitalized urban neighborhoods?j
This reflection came during the release of the Healthy Harbor Report Card – a joint effort among the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore, Blue Water Baltimore, and the Integration and Application Network at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.
These organizations released the report card at Mill #1, a renovated former cotton mill now housing 92 apartments, 42,000 square feet of office space, two restaurants and an environmental laboratory for schoolkids on the Jones Falls near Hampden. While the report card conveyed failing grades for most water quality indicators sampled, the grades reflected improvements since 2012. A tone of genuine optimism was evident among speakers that efforts to bring back these long-ignored waterways were beginning to pay off in noticeable ways.
While touring the renovated building, a 2010 recipient of a Sustainable Communities Tax Credit from the Maryland Historic Trust, I wondered whether we are beginning to see improvements in Baltimore’s rivers because more people want to live and work in places like Mill #1, close to shops and services and other city dwellers. Would more people in the city mean more people willing to work to improve the health and safety of its neighborhoods?
Jones Falls in Autumn
On the flip side, maybe we are seeing people reinvest in areas along the harbor and the Jones Falls because they are finding these once rundown areas more interesting and attractive. Maryland Department of Planning staff and others have worked for years to create meaningful incentives to direct “smart growth” toward areas where roads, buildings and services already exist, as a way to protect our vital natural resources. Among those incentives, the tax credit program that encourages redevelopment and reuse of historic buildings like Mt. Vernon Mill. Tax credits are a tangible way to spur development in Maryland’s built communities while saving historic structures.
In 1996, Baltimore played host to one of the first national conferences on watersheds, at which then Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior Bruce Babbitt spoke about revitalization of urban waterways and how they inject new life into cities and towns. He highlighted the renaissance on Cleveland’s waterfront, where new restaurants and businesses moved in two decades after the famous burning of the Cuyahoga River set the modern environmental movement into motion. He noted that the waterway was being restored because the community was being restored. Or was it vice-versa?
Actually, it doesn’t really matter which happens first, so long as we recognize that healthy natural resources and thriving communities are inextricably linked. Success begets success. As older buildings are rehabilitated or repurposed, neighborhoods are revived. As we reinvest in communities and infrastructure, we improve water quality around us.
Yet, when we do the opposite – shift investment from existing cities, erect new buildings where trees and farms once dominated – we destroy both those natural resources as well as the health of our older communities.
As places like the Jones Falls are once again viewed as desirable habitat, more people will flock to restored sites along its shores. Just as the proverbial chicken and egg, ultimately we cannot have healthy waterways without healthy communities, nor can our communities thrive alongside neglected riverfronts. Only when we consider them as dependent, one upon the other, will we see both improve and thrive.
The silver lining to that Healthy Harbor report card with its less-than-stellar grades is that the work of many to reinvest, restore, and renew our neighborhoods and waterways is beginning to pay real dividends in towns across Maryland, even in the middle of Baltimore.
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