Baltimore leaders have pledged to tear down 4,000 vacant properties in four years, but few will be as symbolic as the one known as Murder Mall.
"I think many of you remember that this used to be called Murder Mall. This was Murder Mall," said Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh as she addressed a crowd of residents outside the apartment complex.
Madison Park North has long been a magnet for crime in Reservoir Hill.
"This was a terrible hot bed for open-air drug markets,” Gov. Larry Hogan said. “People are getting killed over here. A young man was stabbed 27 times right around the corner."
And now neighbors like Ruthie Wilder are relieved to see it go.
"It was kind of rough, because you'd hear gunshots and all coming from there, but thank God we're past that and we're moving on to a better future," Wilder said.
Work on a new 21st century school is already underway across the street, and the dilapidated apartment complex is being cleared to make way for a new Madison Park North that may transform the neighborhood.
"The site will feature a much-needed new grocery store, retail shops, a new restaurant, medical office space, as well as mixed-income housing and also student housing for the Maryland Institute College of Art," Hogan said.
This is one of 30 different projects in 10 different neighborhoods announced Friday.
The city and state are investing $16 million that is expected to draw $285 million worth of outside investment.
There is also a push to hire people from those same communities replacing blight with hope for a better tomorrow.
"That would give them something to do and enhance their future and their children's future and, prayerfully, they will stay here and grow, get old here, have their grands and everything here," Wilder said.
And this is just the beginning.
Through what's called the C.O.R.E. Project, the city and state hope to transform an innovation district stretching from Coppin State to MICA, and north from Mondawmin Mall to Martin Luther King Boulevard.
