By Carley Milligan  – Digital Editor, Baltimore Business Journal

 

A new 71-unit affordable apartment building on downtown Baltimore’s west side opened earlier this month and is already fully leased, according to the project’s architect.

Peter Fillat III, CEO of Fillat+ Architecture, is one of the forces behind L on Liberty, which is located at 216 N. Liberty St. The project was headed up by developer Housing Trust of America LLC (HTA), which purchased the buildings in 2015 in an effort to revitalize a forgotten portion of downtown formerly known as the “Super Block”.

The 76,240-square-foot building has one, two and three-bedroom units priced under market-rate, as well as a handful of ADA-compliant units. One-bedroom units cost between $659 and $848 per month to rent, with rent for two-bedroom units at about $770 and three-bedroom units for between $879 and $1,142.

L on Liberty also has a fitness room, rooftop deck, playground and business center, as well as a bicycle storage facility since parking was not incorporated into the $12 million project. The development got underway in December 2017.

It was constructed on an old surface parking lot, sold by the city to Columbia-based HTA for $300,000 as part of a large-scale Request for Proposals for redevelopment of multiple vacant, city-owned sites east of Lexington Market and north of Royal Farms Arena.

“It’s a really great neighborhood,” Fillat said. “It’s right downtown, very walkable, the scale of the streets are smaller and there’s a nice relationship between the pedestrian experience and automobiles.”

He said his firm will continue to take on projects in the area and hopes others will continue to join in as well.

“Time is kind of on our side here,” he added. “Real estate is so cheap and it’s such a great location that I thin some creative individuals can put something together.”

HTA also developed M on Madison, an affordable housing development that opened in 2013 a few blocks north of L on Liberty.