Baltimore Food Hub gets cookin’

The long-planned Baltimore Food Hub is finally set to start construction on a $16 million commercial kitchen.
The project, once slated to be ready by fall 2014, will be built on a 3.5-acre parcel at Gay and Wolfe streets in East Baltimore, the Baltimore Sun reports. Project manager Greg Heller of American Communities Trust told Technical.ly Baltimore in 2013 the group was seeking grants, equity and tax credits to fund what was then a $10 million goal.
From the Sun:

City officials signed off this month on a deal to sell the land to the nonprofit for $500,000. Nearly all of the mortgage would be forgiven if the full scope of the project comes to fruition.
Heller said seven drums of hazardous waste have been removed from the site and other environmental remediation is under way to get it ready for construction next year.
The cooks, bakers and farmers who would rent space at the facility are expected to sell their products to local restaurants and college dining halls, including at Goucher College and Johns Hopkins University, Heller said.

Hopkins officials see the project as an extension of their efforts in the East Baltimore Development Inc. project, according to the Sun report. The site, a 19th-century pumping station and, more recently, a city transportation maintenance facility, has been vacant since 2011.

Read the full story