Long-Awaited Baltimore Food Hub Breaks Ground in East Baltimore

Communal food campus to provide job training, commercial kitchens, and urban farming.

Baltimore Magazine by Lauren Cohen 
The cluster of dilapidated masonry buildings that sits swallowed in untamed vines on the corner of East Oliver and North Wolfe Streets will soon become a destination for economic opportunity in East Baltimore.
Though it’s been nearly five years since plans were announced to transform the old Eastern Pumping Station site into Baltimore Food Hub, a ground-breaking ceremony held earlier today officially kick started the $23.5 million redevelopment. The project will eventually yield a 3.5-acre campus with job-training facilities, communal incubator space, and an excess of land to be dedicated to urban farming.
Members of American Communities Trust (ACT)—the national development partner overseeing the redesign alongside local workforce nonprofit Humanim—were joined by upwards of 75 local community leaders and Broadway East residents to celebrate the milestone, as trains whizzed by on the adjacent Amtrak line overhead.
Among those in attendance were City Council President Bernard C. Young, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development Jay Williams, ACT board president Bill Struever, Maryland State Delegate Maggie McIntosh, and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who has made food justice a top priority throughout her administration.
“The food hub is a perfect example of what happens when purpose meets planning,” Rawlings-Blake said. “This site has been considered the front door to Baltimore that you see when you’re travelling by Amtrak. This is a critical component to making that entryway vibrant and vital, and it’s a true reflection of the future of our city.”