The Bombshell News About the Key Bridge Rebuild

 Just when I thought that enough had been said about the Key Bridge collapse and rebuild, (I wrote two previous blog articles on the topic) a bombshell exploded yesterday that confirmed the worst fears about what could go wrong with the reconstruction. MDOT announced that the bridge would be nearly 300% more expensive than the previously published lower end of the estimated cost ($1.9 bn) and the completion time would be pushed back 2 additional years to 2030, i.e. extended by 50%! The media reported without comment, dutifully quoting the official explanations which had to do with inflation, tariffs and protected bride supports. I will get to this in a moment.

The proposed new Key Bridge (MdTA rendering)

It had been suspiciously quiet around the rebuilding of Key Bridge after the almost daily updates during the cleanup of the wrecked bridge right after the collapse. You will remember, the clean-up was completed ahead of the schedule which the "Unified Command" had set for itself with a heavy participation of Governor Moore. 

Impressed by that delivery, I had suggested to create a similar emergency framework around the rebuild as well, a unified command type structure in lieu of the highly regulated business as usual approach which is typical for public transportation projects.

Alas, the project was handed to the Maryland Transportation Authority MdTA, a branch under the Maryland Department of Transportation. There was some media noise around the request for proposals for the innovative "progressive design build" (PDB) title which was described by MdTA as a two-phase  approach. The PDB was supposed to foster collaboration, ensure flexibility, and compress the schedule in that no time was spent to prepare a design or specifications for the bidder. Not even the required new clear height or the minimum required protection of the piers was provided, the latter a no brainer after a pier had so spectacularly failed when the rudderless Dali had rammed it. The basic parameters were supposed to be established in phase 1 of the procurement along with a firm cost. Should design and cost be acceptable, MdTA would proceed with the selected bidder, otherwise it would "deliver the work under a separate contracting mechanism" (MdTA press release).

Original MdTA schedule (community meeting)

The silence from MdTA continued even when the anticipated  milestone of summer 2025 as the end of a conceptual design phase and a firming up of the cost anticipated came and went. The news about the Key Bridge were limited to details about the demolition of the remaining concrete portions of the bridge, the driving of test piles for the new bridge and that the new bridge would be offset to the side of the old one and not be constructed in the exact same place. It had also been shared that the new bridge would be some 50' taller than the old one and that it would be, as expected, "cable stayed". 

The cost and schedule bomb was detonated now, months after  the initial milestone. Kiewit, the selected bidder and designer, must have convinced MdTA officials that their exploded cost estimate was entirely reasonable since there is no word about ""delivering the work under a separate contracting mechanism."  According to Kiewit's own website, their official construction cost is still months away and will only be submitted in "the first quarter of 2026". Kiewit is only now soliciting subcontractor proposals for many trades.  

Apparently, the Trump administration's Department of Transportation got wind of the cost and schedule problems ahead of the public. Secretary Sean Duffy expressed in a September letter  "concerns" about "ballooning" cost, a slipping schedule and the DBE set-asides which are common practice for all public projects in Maryland. He added ominously: "We will leverage our oversight authorities to ensure this vital bridge is rebuilt the right way.” 

the large approach ramps that are being fully demolished (MdTA photo)

The last thing that Marylanders need is that Key Bridge rebuild becomes a political football. However, given the acrimony between the Governor and the President, it is unlikely that the feds will fork over two or three times the originally estimated $1.9 bn. This  which would throw Maryland's already troubled budget into even more stress. The official reasons given by MDOT why the bridge will be so much more expensive and so much slower to build point to Trump's tariffs, overall inflation and unexpected extra cost. Neither the tariffs nor the high inflation of construction materials can fully explain a cost increase of 200-300%. I suppose, unforeseen from the standpoint of a bidder in 2024, was the new bridge height of 230" feet instead of the previous 180'. Taller translates into longer approach ramps, taller pylons, higher loads, i.e. overall higher cost.  If cost and expediency was of utmost importance, a much more moderate increase of the clearance may have sufficed as well, especially since the Bay Bridge is only as tall as the old Key Bridge. Pans for a full reconstruction are in a pretty distant future. A less tall bridge may have allowed maintaining the old access ramps, although MdTA denies that this was an option. 

Even the new exorbitant cost doesn't allow any pedestrian or bike access to or across the bridge or any type of customization such as a viewing platform, iconic lighting or an art budget to name just a few things that could enhance the new bridge to become one again a landmark. 

More than all design aspects, though, what makes US infrastructure projects so slow and expensive, are  the bureaucratic procedures from procurement to permitting and construction. I got a first row view of that as a member of the Red Line project which a governor canceled for political reasons after 13 years of planning and review. 

Today public agencies such as MTA or MdTA don't have the staff to design or oversee large projects themselves. So, in addition to hiring contractors to build, they have to hire designers that draw things up and specify a project (in the case of the Key Bridge and the Purple Line the designer and contractor are part of the same contract), then they need to hire consultants that can oversee both, the design and the construction contractors. Every step of the way agencies have to involve the public (more consultants), follow all environmental laws (even more consultants and lawyers), procurement rules, labor contracts and the like (lots of lawyers). Most of these regulations have been enacted for good reasons, namely to protect the public. However, in an emergency it should be possible to cut to the chase and go straight for what needs to be done, just as it was demonstrated for the bridge debris removal and cleanup under "unified command" and as it was done for the large bridge in Genoa, Italy, that fell in a thunderstorm and was rebuilt in 18 months and within the budget. The same consortium that rebuilt the more than a mile long bridge there, offered their services here as well. As far as I know, they were never heard, let alone selected when they bid the job. 

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

previously on this blog:

The New Key Bridge - More Questions than Answers (7/24)

A "Cathedral of American Infrastructure" - gone in a few seconds (3/24)

Baltimore: The Jones Falls is waiting for you!

 The world over cities are rediscovering their rivers. Historic Frederick, MD successfully looked at San Antonio, TX when it created its own Riverwalk, an all around successful project bearing fruit for years now. Denver, CO is taking advantage of its rather puny Platte River to the fullest extent in ever new segments that boast riverfront trails and redevelopment of former industrial sites in RiNo.  

Adaptive reuse and Platte River greenway in
Denver's Ri-No district. (Photo:Philipsen)

But in Baltimore we have done almost nothing to celebrate our Jones Falls in spite of its beauty that is far exceeding the creeks of the examples. Not only did we leave it lingering underground over wide stretches, we are seriously discussing placing a recycling transfer station along its banks in a spot where it is about the most beautiful. 

The renewed discussions about the Sisson Street recycling transfer station and the possible relocation to the adjacent but much lower Potts and Callahan site motivated me to walk Sisson Street from 29th Street to 26 Street and the closed Sisson Street bridge and I saw only opportunities. Most of us know this area only from flying over the bridges of 28th and 29th Streets, high above the river and crossing Sisson Street at the edge of Remington. And what an edge it is! The landscape urbanist Alan Berger coined the term Drosscape for these urban wastelands which are vestiges of a time long passed in which the river attracted all kinds of industries. Today this edge consists of abandoned and repurposed factories, billboards, communication towers, a gas station, a fast food place, two bus facilities and acres of unused pavement. And a waste stations. 

This low-intensity-use landscape is so underutilized that it should invite any creative mind to imagine what it could be. Cues of possibilities are everywhere, in the vegetation surround some abandoned structures, the driveways that gently overcome the significant drop between Sisson Street and Falls Road and in the architecture of some of the old industrial buildings. 

The Sisson transfer station (partial view) (Photo: Philipsen

Denver's redevelopment of the River-North arts district (RiNo) comes to mind in which the River Platte plays a major role. Those transformation do not come without intention and major efforts. THK designed South Platte river greenway masterplan and Sasaki created the Denargo district masterplan. Plans to turn the Platte from a stinking backwater into an urban attraction have been in the works for decades. Today Denver developed some 60 miles of river trails with additional projects still underway or to be started. Today Denver's economic vitality is in large parts based on active recreation along its riverbanks. 

In Baltimore the lift would be much easier. Remington has already come a long way from a disinvested area to a desired location to live, populated by folks of various incomes, races and orientations. What is needed is to connect this neighborhood to a cleaned up the Jones Falls river greenway. Such a link would create a beautiful synergy and many opportunities for innovative re-use of those drosscape spaces. 

Part of the Sisson Street "Drosscape" in the area where Remington
could connect to the Jones Falls (Photo Philipsen)

The recycling transfer station plays a pivotal role. It occupies over 5 acres used for dropping off recyclables from private vehicles, placing a number of dumpsters with sorted materials and truck access to and from the dumpsters. The site was declared surplus and even offered in a proposal process by BDC. The interested party in the site is Seawall Development, the same developer responsible for a lot of reinvestment in Remington. They want to build a commercial development with a grocery store on the site. The City proposed to relocate the facility to the adjacent lot where the streetcar museum wants to refurbish the old railroad roundhouse to house their museum there.

A re-imagined transfer station that would be incorporated into a mixed use development could be innovative and feature green roofs etc., in short be made compatible with the efforts to connect Remington to the Jones Falls. An example of such an approach can be found in Seattle. 

The success of this trash-processing station in a residential neighborhood shows that with a thoughtful discovery process, design can make even the most noxious building typology a boon.
Seattle’s North Transfer Station might reasonably be mistaken as a factory for electric cars or some other high-tech production facility. But the low-lying translucent glass and concrete structure actually houses a dump, right between two residential neighborhoods and less than 100 yards from the shore of Lake Union. (Architecture Magazine)

For now the Mayor put the dumpster site plans on hold by announcing that he will form a task force to look into all options for the Sisson facility. The task force will include City Council members, community stakeholders and city officials.  Scott promised to "consider all options for the future of the transfer station, including keeping it where it is, moving it or simply closing it”. 

Scenic portions of the Jones Falls along Falls Road
make you feel like you are far outside the city

Meanwhile the Friends of the Jones Falls have received a grant to create a strategic plan for the future of the Jones Falls and its connected waterways. The project is touted as a historic collaboration between City and County from Greenspring Valley to the Inner Harbor. The work will be led by three team leaders for the upper, middle and lower portion of the stream. 

Efforts of making the Jones Falls a central feature of Baltimore's planning infrastructure are not new. The Olmsted Brothers did as much in their 1904 Report Upon the Development of Public Grounds for Greater Baltimore, but that was obviously before the JFX was built above much of the stream. Currently there is also a Jones Falls Gateway Masterplan and a Gateway project which "seeks to transform a narrow, discontinuous sidewalk along the south side of Falls Road and Lanvale Street — between the CSX Bridge underpass (next to the Streetcar Museum) and Charles Street — into a 10–13' wide shared-use path suitable for people of all ages." Finally, the City has its own Green Network Plan which also makes the Jones Falls part of a larger trail network. 

The Potts and Callahan site with the roundhouse desired
by the Streetcar Museum which already loops its tracks
through the site (Photo: Philipsen)

In short, there is enough awareness of the importance of the Jones Falls for recreation and green networks that any attempt of putting a trash station at its banks appears as planning blasphemy, or at least as something where the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, the affliction of not seeing the forest for the trees that seems to be all too common in Baltimore. For once, please see the bigger picture!

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

https://baltimorefishbowl.com/stories/council-bill-introduced-to-sell-remington-dump-property-for-redevelopment-falls-road-parcel-proposed-as-a-replacement/

https://baltimorefishbowl.com/stories/legislation-to-sell-sisson-street-transfer-station-property-for-private-development-put-on-hold-pending-recommendations-of-mayoral-task-force/

Drosscape: Underutilized but with potential: The areas along the
edge of Remington

Underutilized, partly green: Opportunities to connect to the river

The transfer site sits on a large retaining wall 

Transfer site used by citizens driving up their recyclables

Sisson Street community park

Remington's edge: Gas stations, fast food, factories

Active uses in old factories can be incorporated in a
greenway connection plan as they are in Denver's Ri-No

Copycat - Baltimore's largest Arts Experiment Comes to an End

On the Auction Block

The Copycat building in Baltimore's Station North Arts District shows up in several chapters in of Baltimore's history. As a building constructed for the fabrication of an exclusive Baltimore innovation and invention - the crown cork for bottles.

Copycat building in Station North
(Photo: Eli Pousson, Baltimore Hertitage)

As a factory building that could adapt to changing needs from making clothing to accommodating  municipal workers providing relief in the Great Depression, to printing presses spewing out reams of paper. The final chapter was a maze of artist studios with all the forms of live-work one can imagine, including indoor skateboard ramps. The future is uncertain. 

Thus the building is testimony of Baltimore's industrial legacy and an example of artists being pioneers in urban rejuvenation. While future chapters are still unwritten, it is almost certain that its life as an art catalyst for Station North has come to an end. The building now faces the auction block and the need for substantial renovations to become useful for any use. This last chapter as a home and workplace for artists isn't as much about the building itself as about people, specifically the role of artists in a gentrifying district.

The auctioneer's  description is dripping with developer speak which conveniently hides the torturous years of its most recent history where a landlord and a part of the artist community battled it out in court and in the press.

 The Copycat Building is a rare landmark redevelopment opportunity located in Baltimore’s thriving Station North Arts and Entertainment District. This massive 265,000-square-foot, 6-level building encompasses a full city block and is a prominent feature of the Baltimore skyline. With its rich history and prime location, the Copycat Building is an ideal investment for a visionary developer. 

Originally built in 1897 as the main factory for the Crown Cork & Seal Company, the building is a marvel of Victorian Industrial architecture. For decades, it was a hub of innovation, producing the world-famous crown-style bottle caps. In the 1980s, the building transformed into an iconic live-work space, becoming a haven for Baltimore's burgeoning art scene and fostering a vibrant community of creative professionals. This unique heritage makes the Copycat Building more than just a property; it's a piece of Baltimore history. The Copycat Building is strategically located in the heart of the Greenmount West Planned Urban Development and the Station North Arts & Entertainment District. Its location offers unparalleled access and visibility. (Alex Cooper website)

Baltimore Street Art 2022, Graffiti Alley

Artists as Window Dressing?

The view of artists is notably different. Two quotes in a 2022 article in the SUN illustrate this.

“Developers use artists like window dressing, once they’re done using the artist, they dispose of them and put up condos the artists can’t afford … and then you’re left with a bunch of people in condos listening to Ed Sheeran.” (Ed Schrader, musician)

“If you guys really think that Baltimore is going to be just as fun and cool a place to live in without any of the artists, any of the show organizers, any of the public art installers that make this city beautiful, you’re in for a really dark, disappointing dystopia.” (Cam Alvarez, musician)

Reflecting the increasing acrimony between artists and landlord is a website organized by Indigo Null, the most vocal spokesperson of the artists' discontent who also organized a rent strike against the landlord that lasted through the pandemic. In an op-ed in Baltimore Beat they claimed:

Indigo Null in their studio space (Photo: Baltimore SUN)

The building was never brought up to housing code or properly licensed in this transition, and was thus operating with severely inadequate fire safety, unabated lead and asbestos, faulty and dangerous wiring, and elevators that were often dangerously inoperational, among other issues. 

After a four year battle Indigo Null was evicted in January of 2024, with media coverage. In a recent Facebook post rent strike organizer Null defended the rent strike with the dire conditions of both tenants and the building:

To be clear, the rent strike started because the landlord tried to evict the majority of the tenants in the building in a situation where many of us did not have any money coming in because of the pandemic. Rather than end up broke and homeless, we chose to preserve our resources so that we could end up in housing that wasn’t full of asbestos and lead. (Indigo Null)

 

"All Over Street" 2-5-2016 (Photo: Philipsen)

The Copy Cat - A Free Space

The third point of view is the one of the public. The Copycat as a hidden gem that was mysterious and a bit frightening in its otherness. It was an experimentation what can be done with space. The cavernous inners chopped up in such a confusing manner that it was easy to get lost which is beautifully demonstrated in this NPR video. Of course, creativity, innovation and artistic expression in pictures, music, sculpture and in the decoration of the spaces themselves. For a time, the public was eager to enter, the slight thrill from knowing that not everything was up to code and that may not find an exit mixed up with the excitement of a truly "free space".

Is Community Development Gentrification?

In many ways the Copycat landlord - tenant fight is also a reflection of the larger housing crisis and the ongoing lack of affordable housing which affects many segments of the population. Depending on the political stance, solutions vary wildly between a market driven view arguing from the supply and owner side and a view focusing on human hardships on the tenant side. Squaring safe and code compliant living with extremely low rent without subsidy may be quite impossible.  The court taking up the Copycat conflict expressed the legal view of this conflict in dry words:

The balance between a property owner’s right to repossess his or her property after the expiration of a tenancy and a tenant’s right to safe and habitable living conditions during a residential tenancy. That balance has been struck by the Legislature through its enactment of a comprehensive statutory framework that governs landlord and tenant relationships, including its modifications to the common law ejectment action and the remedies afforded to tenants to ensure safe and habitable housing. Anna Velicky v. The Copycat Building LLC, No. 1, September Term, 2021; Christopher Walke v. The Copycat Building LLC, No. 2, September Term, 2021, Opinion by Booth, J.

In a city like Baltimore that is angling for any foothold that let it climb out of the deep troubles that deindustrialization has wrought, the fight over the Copycat building has an even bigger horizon. It encompasses the issue of the City's shrinking population, the many vacant buildings, the branding of the city as a heaven for artistic people and the need for safer neighborhoods. The City can't be a neutral bystander and has to step up to bridge and mitigate the conflicts between protecting renters and stabilizing communities. The Copycat building should matter to the City administration.

Studio space (Screenshot NPR video)

Bridging Artistic Vibe and Development

Baltimore has invested in the idea of being an attractive destination for creativity, arts, innovation and quirkiness. The Copycat building with its chaotically creative studio spaces was the perfect expression of this self image. The City designated four arts and entertainment districts and for some time Station North seemed to be the one flourishing the most. During its heydays between 2009 and 2014  Station North organized Art Walks dubbed All Over Street during which the public came in droves to see the hidden city, the work of artists, the creative live work-spaces, and to drink and party. 

At the same time, Baltimore is working on stabilizing its ailing neighborhoods so they can keep their existing residents happy and become a destination for new residents. To this end the Greenmount Avenue corridor, the North Avenue corridor, Barclay, Johnston Square and Station North itself have made significant progress. Depressed property values, abandoned homes and vacant lots are a burden on existing residents and a detriment to attracting new ones. Therefore, one of the goals of neighborhood stabilization is to increase property values so owners can obtain loans,  generate generational wealth, or sell their homes and developers can recover rehabilitation and new construction cost through rent or sale without subsidies. 

City Arts Building in Station North (Jubilee Baltimore)

That makes keeping the artistic vibe parallel to neighborhood revitalization so difficult. When the neighborhood recovers, dirt cheap rents disappear. Is the path that the two musicians described in 2022 where the artists in the end get kicked inevitable? It was the case at the Bell Foundry in Station North, the H&H building in the Bromo arts district, the Copy Cat Annex and now for the Copycat itself. It will probably happen for the large complex in East Baltimore where the Crown Cork and Seal company had moved after moving out of their original quarters. In light of the Oakland fire then Mayor Pugh the City briefly stepped up to solve the problem of cheap artists housing that is also safe by creating the Safe Artist Space task force. The workgroup issued a report but didn't yield any substantial results, even though the City obviously tolerated a not code compliant Copycat building for some time. 

Station North Matures

Today in Station North there are no longer All-Over-Street events, the artist hang-out at the Windup Space has long closed and so did Joe Square Pizza and a number of other places that gave Station North its original vibe. The Bell Foundry evicted all tenants soon after the devastating fire in a similar space in Oakland that killed 36 people. Then a developer snapped it up. 

But things are not entirely bleak for artists. The Station North Arts District is still there, organizing events such as monthly art walks, with 20 venues this August. The Central Baltimore Partnership is working to revive the large former North Avenue Market where the Windup Space was and Liam Flynn were located. 

The Market, 10-30 West North Avenue, demonstrates Central Baltimore Partnership’s collaborative approach. 
In 2024, CBP and Central Baltimore Future Fund purchased this anchor in partnership with the building’s longtime owners Mike Shecter and Carolyn Frenkil and future owner, Twenty-Two Lanes.
The Market is now activated by interim tenants, including Baltimore Youth Arts, Club Car, and Mobtown Ballroom and Cafe, while plans and resources for the restoration are assembled. (CBP website)

The creative spirit in Station North is still alive. Open Works is flourishing as one of the nation's largest maker spaces, the Impact Hub is actively "supporting a community of innovators and entrepreneurs to scale and sustain their initiatives", two modern artist live-work spaces developed by Jubilee are fully booked. 

North Avenue Market 2024 (Photo: Philipsen)

Area 405, a building around the corner from the Copycat may be illustrative. Its function as an artists refuge and creative center had also been in jeopardy  because of code issues and the building's condition in spite of heroic efforts of an artist cooperative who owned the building since 2001 and provided a home to 45 artists working in the building, the Station North Tool Library, and the AREA 405 the exhibition space.  After 20 years of independent artist-run ownership  the anchor of the Station North Arts & Entertainment District, and Baltimore City had to close in 2021. But it wasn't gentrification that followed. Instead, the CBP together with developer Ernst Valery stepped in to save the structure and its use by artists with the help of a slew of funding sources including the France-Merrick Foundation, the Goldseker Foundation, the Baltimore City Neighborhood Impact Investment Fund, Reinvestment Fund, the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development, and the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation.  Area 405 will host the annual "Sweaty Eyeballs" animation show on August 22.

“I cannot find another example of a community coming together to save an arts space like what has happened with Area 405. With a very strong development team, we took a calculated risk on a revitalization strategy. We couldn’t find the model, so we created it. I hope to see it replicated again in Baltimore and in other parts of the country. It is feasible, and it is critically important.” (Ellen Janes, Executive Director CBP)

 CBP is not likely to come to the rescue of the Copycat, it would be far too big a bite in addition to all their other projects. Could it be that another entity steps up to save the Copycat from being moved out of artists reach? Whether it will happen or not, change will continue in Station North and across the city and the art scene will change as well. After reading this article Indigo Null sent me this statement which sums it up quite nicely:

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Related article on this Blog:

The Copy Cat: Part of a Hidden City (2016)

Other sources:

https://www.baltimoresun.com/2022/07/28/copycat-building-photos/

https://www.baltimoresun.com/2019/05/18/jacques-kelly-the-nine-lives-of-baltimores-copycat-building-in-greenmount-west-from-industry-to-arts/

https://www.baltimoresun.com/2025/08/14/copycat-building-auction-sale/

https://baltimorebeat.com/op-ed-when-knowing-your-rights-just-isnt-enough-a-copycat-organizing-retrospective/. (June 2024)

https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2012/03/22/149061691/peek-inside-the-copy-cat-building-where-baltimore-artists-work-and-live

Retired Baltimore Subway Cars for the Homeless?

 After almost 40 years of service the MTA subway car fleet has reached its end of life and will be replaced with new cars beginning this year. In spite of four decades of hauling riders, many people in Baltimore don't even know that the subway exists. Maybe that would change if subway cars would be converted to a homeless village?

Baltimore subway. 80 Budd Universal Transit Vehicles (Image: MTA)

What to do with old subway cars is a nationwide problem. Transit agencies are eager to order new equipment, but leave unresolved what to do with the large amounts of scrap. 

New York dumped thousands of old subway cars into the ocean so the could harbor marine life as artificial reefs. It turned out that this method worked successfully for the old steel cars but not for the newer stainless steel models. Baltimore has to get rid of 80  Budd Universal Transit Vehicles which are clad in stainless steel. The US company Budd, at the end bought up by German Thyssen and now defunct, stopped making those cars in 1986. This specific model is in use only in Baltimore and Miami. 

Given the housing crisis and the soaring homelessness it isn't surprising that folks trying to end homelessness as well as architects and makers continue to come come up with the ideas of how to cost effectively and humanely house the unhoused.  It was inevitable that using the old train cars for housing would come up. Is it feasible?

Dimensions, sides and ends of the train cars

A Baltimore subway car wouldn't be a tiny home; with its 75 ft length and 10 ft width and overall 12' height (7'-2" clear) it would offer a gross area of 750 sqft or exactly the size of an average US  one bedroom apartment in 2018 (Statistica).

The idea of repurposing train cars as structures is not new. In fact, the concept of the "diner" originated with silver train cars about a 100 years ago. 

Diners look like rail carriages because they once were for the most part – they were converted into mobile eateries and built to replicate them. Learning how the trend started requires a time travel back in time to the 19th century and then forward to New Jersey which remains America’s undisputed diner capital to this very day. (Article)

Hollywood Diner Baltimore (SUN photo 2018)

When the Washington Metro modernized their subway cars, the late DC architect Arthur Cotton Moore suggested housing for the homeless and got a lot of media attention. (Huffington Post, CityLab, WaPo). 

The idea never got off the ground and some of DC's famous 2000 series metro cars reportedly wound up as scrap in Baltimore. Judging from the sketches, Moore seems to have been a bit loose with the specifics of the rail car, though. With similar dimensions as the Baltimore subway car, its not clear how he came up with the two 560-square-foot one-bedroom apartments in each railcar that he had sketched and described to the Huff Post. 

Cotton Moore sketch for a Metro car converted into two apartments

Subway cars were not yet turned into housing as far as I can tell. Portland, OR held an idea competition in 2020 for the re-use of the MAX articulated light rail cars which are narrower but longer than subway cars. The MAX Village (Jury award) and Afro Village (People's Choice Award) were the most notable concepts.

"MAX Village" proposes a mobile, synergistic series of spaces that create living, learning sustaining and growing opportunities for Portland's most vulnerable populations.The concept reuses multiple Type 1 MAX cars at a time and proposes simple changes to the cars' interiors to accommodatea range of new functions including a learning center, a health clinic, a community kitchen and a warming shelter. Bringing the four functions together generates an inclusive and forward-looking atmosphere that empowers people to grow and learn new skills while addressing pressing needs of health and shelter.(Competition Board)

Portland MAX Village competition board

NDC volunteer and expert for homeless villages Todd Ferry who at the time worked on the Portland MAX Reuse Design Challenge organized by Portland State University’s Center for Public Interest Design showed me the Afro Village concept which is now closest to realization. The articulated tram cars are slated to become a resource center for the unhoused.  

The AfroVillage team is working to transform a retiring MAX train and a site on N Larrabee into the AfroFuturism Oasis— a sanctuary space that harmoniously integrates nature, clean energy, green infrastructure, and Afrofuturistic design to create a healing oasis for Black, Indigenous, and People of
Color in Portland. (Afro Village website)

In London a few Tube subway cars became artist studios. 

Located on top of an old brick warehouse in Shoreditch, London, Village

Underground provides affordable studio space for young artists (around 15 pounds per week). The subway cars act as working spaces for the artists, while a lower-level restored warehouse is used to host events and exhibit the artists’ works. The four subway vehicles that make up the village were purchased for a grand total of 200 pounds each. They were then moved on top of the warehouse, and retrofitted to create a working space. The seats inside the carriages were removed, but everything else remains as is (one can even go into the cabin to play around with all the buttons and levers).The best bit? There are plans to expand this concept to Berlin, Lisbon, and Toronto. Needless to say, we love it. (In-Habitat)

London artist studios (In-Habitat)

Montreal also held a design   competition in 2016 for a future use of discarded transit cars. As a result a couple of Montreal subway cars became a cafe in 2018 in the F-MR station project which is slated to become a bigger multistory installation of eight metro cars.  In  In DC a couple of cars are converted into the brewpub Metrobar.

What speaks for using the subway cars for housing is that they have windows, doors, are wider than trailers, have some insulation and also ground clearance useable as a crawl space. They also have ducts for heating and cooling as well as electric conduits. The Baltimore cars are made from stainless steel that is pretty corrosion proof. It would have to be investigated whether the cars would need to be stripped top the shell in order to install more insulation and an acceptable interior finish or whether ceilings, current wall cladding and conduits could be kept and used. Possibly HVAC could run through existing vents and ducts and a heat pump installed on the roof could provide heating and cooling. Since the cars have only minimal insulation a solar array could shade them in combination with awnings, trellises and other devices that would make a subway car look less austere. 

In his proposal DC architect Moore pointed out that the most expensive items would be the bath and kitchenette in each of his mini apartments. Since kitchens and bathrooms need water and sewer, this is, indeed and addition that would require significant modification, even if one could run the pipes in the crawl space underneath. Moore envisioned a village of up to 80 cars. This would have been 160 baths and kitchens in an arrangement that in the architect's sketch looked like a refugee camp. 

Cotton Moore suggestion for a subway car village

The cost for bathrooms and kitchenettes could be avoided by not equipping all cars with them and using a campground concept instead, where the cars are housing pods and a central facility would provide space for kitchen, showers and laundry. These central amenities could potentially also be built from subway cars if they were paired into doubles with parts of the exterior wall removed. The campground concept with central facilities has been applied in homeless villages around the country, especially in Portland and Seattle. 

Solving the technical issues of conversion isn't enough to realize a subway car village. For this to happen one needs a site, the proper zoning, agreement in the surrounding community, amenities in the vicinity and a way to make converted subway cars acceptable to code officials. Buildings are tightly regulated from minimum room sizes to ceiling heights and insulation. A possible way to avoid building codes is to declare the village a campground. Another is to define the structures as vehicles, the same approach that paved the path for mobile homes to become a success for affordable housing. For this the wheels would have to stay on and the cars would have to set up so they could be moved, at least theoretically. Should the residents be required to move after a certain time or become long-term tenants? In Portland the villages consisting of stick-built pods are considered transitions from living in the street to a more permanent solution in a home or apartment. Ferry told me that people that had this transition had a much higher success rate in staying in permanent housing compared to those moving from the street.

Building Community: Agape Village, Portland

One of the positive effects of a homeless village is the aspect of community among people that share certain experiences. The sense of community is also often cited as the reason why certain "tent cities" keep popping up. To support the aspect of community a village for the homeless should apply placemaking elements that consider and prioritize the spaces between structures as much as the structures themselves. Instead of the military order proposed in the Cotton Moore arrangement, a village would have gardens, gathering places, fire pits and allow nature to filter in. Should subway cars be used in a greater number, it would be important to break the uniformity of their appearance through add-ons and modifications such as porches, stairs, decks and the like that allow individualization and do everything to avoid the refugee camp impression in favor of a more the spatial arrangement of a traditional village. Given their size, cutting them in half could be considered, allowing, for example, putting the two half in a right angle to each other with a wooden deck, breezeway or porch as the connecting link.

For the idea of adaptive reuse of subway cars for housing to gain traction in Baltimore, an entire eco-system of supporters is needed to sort through site selection, availability of utilities, zoning, code issues, transport and delivery of the cars and community participation. Most importantly, such a project would need funding, possibly from the resources set aside to combat homelessness. If done right, a proposed solution would be a win-win for the City, the MTA, the community and of course for the unhoused.

Hope Village Tiny Homes in East Baltimore

Baltimore City has supported unconventional solutions before from the Red Village in Station North to the tiny homes in East Baltimore.  Open Works has expressed interest in the concept and could provide the necessary fit-out work and accessories. Mayor Scott has continually shown an interest in solving the homeless problem and has even bought entire hotels to this end. Would an experiment with subway cars of interest? it is worth finding out fast, some old subway car  are already available.

 Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Related on this Blog:

These tiny homes are supposed to do a big lift (2024)

Housing the Homeless (2017)

Does the Tiny House solve a real problem? (2017)

What "Community First" could mean for affordable housing and homeless policies (2018)

What it takes to transport one Metro car

Inside of the DC Metrobar car

Montreal MR-63 project vision

Montreal cafe car MR-63 initial installation