ABOUT HUB WEST BALTIMORE CDC

 

HUB West Baltimore grew out of extended conversations with community organizations like the Edmondson Community Organization. Those conversations, along with meetings with city government leaders in economic development, housing and planning, identified a need for a community development corporation (or CDC) to focus on the immediate area around the station - some of the most disinvested census tracts in the state, yet an area with tremendous strengths and unlimited potential. The specific needs identified by those city and community leaders for the focus area included:

 
  • A Unified Voice: a loud and media-savvy voice from the community, speaking as one, arguing in favor of equity-aware development - both commercial and residential

  • A Development-Ready Project Partner: a community planning and project partner with fluency in revitalization, affordable housing and transportation that’s ready to work on Day 1 with developers, homeowners and government partners

  • Greater Grant-Getting: a community grant-seeking organization that can successfully go after larger and potentially transformational federal and foundational offerings

  • A Cultural Catalyst: a “Friends of” culture-focused organization that will help grow the numbers of festivals and markets, and facilitate the creation of as much green space and recreational opportunities as possible

 

Moving forward on those four items will be the core of the organization’s mission.

As of early 2022, HUB West Baltimore officially became a unit of the newly-revived and revitalized Edmondson Community Organization. Together, the two linked organizations - one part focusing on development (HUB) and one on community cohesion (ECO) will work to bring rapid, equitable, transformational revitalization to the neighborhoods around the West Baltimore MARC Station.




 
 

Executive Director - Jonathan Sacks

Jonathan was born and raised in West Baltimore (Bolton Hill), and is a fourth generation West Baltimorean - with his father, grandmother and great-grandmother living just eight blocks north of the MARC Station. He has experience with development in Washington, and has had a front row seat for decades there, to witness the torrid pace of revitalization, as well as the true marginalization of groups left out of the benefit equation. He believes things could be done differently in West Baltimore - and that good planning, quality government leadership, a recognition of structural racism’s continued effects on the city today, and a firm commitment to right those wrongs are the keys. His academic background is in regional development and finance. He has degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton School.

Email: jsacks@HUBWestBaltimore.org

 

President, Edmondson Community Organization - Joe Richardson

Joe came to the ECO from the organized labor world, where he served in the Local 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers union. A 20-year resident of Baltimore and an owner in Midtown-Edmondson, he believes deeply in the area’s potential as an equitably-revitalized center of Baltimore’s African-American community. He grew up in New York, and his experience there, during that city’s transformation from bankruptcy to boomtown, tells him that development will find its way to communities with storied histories, great locations and world-class architecture. He just wants to ensure that that redevelopment happens now instead of 20 or 30 years from now. And most important, he wants to make sure that the benefits of that revitalization accrue, firstly, to the existing residents and stakeholders.

Email: jrich.eco@gmail.com