Urban development can be a long, slow, frustrating process. Communities are often reluctant about things changing in their neighborhoods. Edmondson Village Shopping Center, which has been plagued by decades of decline and was the site of a shooting in 2023 that left five people injured and one dead, is one of those places.
But a Facebook message from one of the community investors in the new project was so meaningful to Lyneir Richardson, whose company is redeveloping the center. The message read: “I used to do crime in and around Edmondson Village. And now I’m part of the ownership.”
“That brought a tear to my eye that day, right? The work is so hard, but here’s a guy who’s saying, ‘I’m happy to be a part of the change,’ right?” Richardson said. “We hope that people will protect it and respect it and shop there in a different way and feel a part of the improvement and understand what’s going on.”
After years of neglect, Richardson’s company, Chicago Trend, purchased the shopping center for $17 million in August 2023. As CEO of the company, he’s working with small local investors and community members to modernize the center and attract new businesses and visitors that will help make it a valuable commodity to the neighborhood.
“Our definition of modernizing is keeping the best of what is there in terms of architecture, but bringing in the architecture of new retailers, as well as making it an asset for the community, which is about services and amenities,” Richardson said.
“So not just about retail, but about other services that will attract the residents that are in the shopping center, that are in the neighborhood, as well as families, middle-income families who now don’t see this as a shopping opportunity to visit it.”
Chicago Trend is investing $3 million in renovations, with a long-term goal of attracting new stores and chain restaurants. Its major attractions include a shopping center and a primary health care center.
As redevelopments are underway, business owners are excited about the future of the shopping center.
“A lot of things are coming. The Popeye’s just got a remodel done. Kimmy’s is doing remodeling. There’s a lot of other stores that are coming also here,” said Muninder Singh, owner of America’s Best Wings.
Baltimore City is investing $7.5 million into the development, and Maryland has sent $2 million as well. The center also has funding from 200 community investors who have a goal of improving things for the community.
“Early on, the analysis is, if we bought this, we will be able to improve it and attract the retailers and attract the tenants that will ultimately pay the mortgage, pay the taxes, make the shopping center viable. So, all of that initial market research led us to believe, hey, we can be successful here over time,” Richardson said.
Richardson said that he holds meetings with community investors to address issues in the shopping center and the overall mission of the project.
“We’ve had great partnership in terms of community investors. 57% of our investors are African American, 42% are women, over 50% reside in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. So, these are people who are going to protect and respect and patronize the shopping center in a different way from an ownership lens,” Richardson said.
The redevelopment was marketed by Chicago Trend with the slogan #weownthis. Investors and residents were invited to invest in the future of redevelopment.
“What that means to us is that people have a connection to ownership,” Richardson said.
“What we hope is that people will get a financial return, but this will also build community cohesion, which is not just the 380 people that have invested in our work or the 200 people that invested in Edmondson Village. It’s an extension of them that would become a connection to ownership, like, ‘my grandmother invested in that.’”
The project coincides with another major development project in the neighborhood, Uplands II, a multifamily complex of 150 units of one-to-three-bedroom apartments, which had a grand opening in late December.
“There’s already homeownership units there. There’ll be additional homeowner units and affordable housing units as well,” said Kristerfer Burnett, former city councilperson for Baltimore’s 8th district.
A concern raised during planning was the possible displacement of long-term residents due to the redevelopment. However, Burnett said the city has programs like Buy Back the Block to turn longtime renters into homeowners and other plans to help older residents maintain their homes.
“The city’s sort of layering on other strategies to both convert renters into homeowners and providing assistance to do that, as well as investments in housing upgrades, whether those are to improve energy efficiency or the stability of the homes in the area so that long-term residents aren’t pushed out due to maintenance costs and just sort of rising costs overall,” Burnett said.
Edmondson Village Shopping Center opened its doors in the spring of 1947. Its decline has led to major stores closing and a rise in crime, most recently a 2023 shooting that injured five people and left one dead. Burnett said the center has installed new security and camera systems, added security patrols, and partnered with the Baltimore Police Department to address loitering and drug dealing in and around the center.
“If we’re trying to attract middle-income shoppers and residents, you want them to be attracted to an environment that’s safe, that they feel like they can accomplish what their shopping objective is without feeling threatened by illegal activity,” Richardson said.
Singh, the owner of America’s Best Wings, remembers how things were in the shopping center before the rise in crime and praised the new security measures that have been recently installed.
“I still have a good memory that this used to be a very good place for every single person to come. The last one or two years there has been a lot of crime here, but they are working on it. They’re putting a lot of cameras around it to make sure that does not happen,” he said.
As the redevelopment procedures are underway, Burnett says that investors are excited about the opportunity of new offerings to their community.
“A lot of folks often travel either to other parts of the city or out of the city to do most of their shopping and engage with retail,” Burnett said.
“The vision here is that people won’t have to do that, that they’ll be able to walk to, a local grocery store or, other amenities as they come along with the redevelopment and be able to do that right in their neighborhood and do so in a way that they, feel safe and can be proud of.”