Social Security's Real Estate Plans For Baltimore

From the Maryland Gazette:

The JBG Cos. of Chevy Chase won the bid to develop a 538,000-square-foot Social Security Administration campus opposite the new Reisterstown Metro station to replace offices in downtown Baltimore, city officials announced Tuesday.

The $150 million complex will transform the northwest corner of the city, an area of low-slung retail and residential properties that Maryland and Baltimore officials have targeted for transit-oriented development. JBG will design and build two office buildings, five and seven stories tall, with a parking garage and day care center.

Construction of the office building, which includes 1,076 parking spaces, is to start next year and be completed in 2014. ...

The new center, 6100 Wabash Ave., will replace the existing Social Security Metro West center. ...

The federal agency has had a long and tortured relationship with the city since it opened its headquarters near Baltimore's waterfront in 1936. It served as a path to middle-class security for thousands of residents, including many blacks who otherwise were shut out of most jobs in the segregated city.

But Social Security's biggest expansion and economic impact came in 1960 when it moved its headquarters to Woodlawn in Baltimore County, spurring an explosion of growth north of the city. The agency eventually opened a new city office complex at 300 N. Greene St. on Baltimore's downtown west side in 1980, but employment there has steadily dwindled.