Ten years ago, a fire destroyed the senior living center located here.
It happened during the uprisings after the death of Freddie Gray, and one year later, the center was rebuilt and has been serving the community ever since.
In 2015, the corner of North Chester and East Federal Street in East Baltimore is where Bishop Donte Hickman was creating a senior living facility for people in his community.
The April 2015 protests changed things.
VIDEO: How a Fire During the Freddie Gray Uprising Sparked a Community Revival
"I had no idea," says Bishop Donté Hickman Sr., senior pastor of Southern Baptist Church.
"People in Baltimore and so many cities like it have normalized the injustices, have normalized the violence have been very passive about the things that have taken place and tolerated and endured it, but this was a very sobering reality where people came to the conclusion that enough was enough, and as it began to escalate, we saw how it could be very productive to change the trajectory of our city."
"Ironically, I was in West Baltimore leading pastors and the police to put out another fire on West North Avenue. Um, we were marching in the streets singing hymns trying to quell the violence, and the police with shields couldn't get past the crowd, and they asked us to march in front of them to put out a fire," says Bishop Hickman Sr.
Little did Bishop Hickman know, there were other fires across town.
"When we got the police to put out that fire, someone ran and said, Pastor, your building is on fire. We rushed to the scene, and at first I was enraged," says Bishop Hickman Sr.
"But I'm not going to be discouraged by this; this is just an epidemic of the lack of investment in an impoverished community that we are living in."
"I thought, how could the community who saw us work so hard to begin to build this center burn it down?"
The entire building was destroyed.
From the ashes, a renewed commitment to rebuild began, from city and state leaders and advocates nationwide who believed in Bishop Hickman's vision.
"Out of that fire and our response to it came a master plan, the East Baltimore Revitalization Plan, adopted by the city's planning department, led by faith-based communities above Johns Hopkins Medical all the way to Clifton Park."
Looking back on how far Baltimore City has come in the last ten years, he believes the city is still on a path of healing.
"That if we have faith and we have the right vision, um, we can rebuild, we can revitalize, and we can be a model for urban centers across America."
Ten years later he is expanding his reach; he now has land to build mixed-use developments and affordable housing.
In the coming weeks he'll break ground on a 120 thousand square foot health and wellness center down the street from the senior center.
