Carrollton Ridge Housing Strategy

Housing strategy for Carrollton Ridge · BMOD advising · Proposal under review

Impact · Design · Make · Develop · Work

U Empower of Maryland (UEM) is a nonprofit in Carrollton Ridge, a neighborhood in Southwest Baltimore. At its community resource hub at 424 S. Pulaski St., UEM runs The Food Project, which offers its neighbors weekly pop-up food markets, healthy meals, fresh produce and pantry items, nutrition education and culinary job training. For UEM, housing is the next step in meeting the community’s needs. UEM invited BMOD to propose how to plan an industrialized housing strategy for the blocks around its hub: retrofitting vacant buildings and infilling vacant lots.

Map of Carrollton Ridge in Southwest Baltimore, centered on The Food Project of U Empower of Maryland at 424 S. Pulaski St., shown in blue, with about two blocks in every direction. A dashed line marks the neighborhood boundary.

The Food Project (U Empower of Maryland), 424 S. Pulaski St., in Carrollton Ridge. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors; neighborhood boundaries from Baltimore City.

What BMOD is doing now

BMOD meets with UEM every two weeks on the housing strategy, including research into the public programs and foundations that could fund planning. On November 10, 2026, BMOD presented a draft proposal for an Industrialized Housing Strategy for the UEM Hub Impact Zone: the hub and the full blocks around it. UEM is reviewing it.

The proposed approach

BMOD would serve as System Integrator from the start. It would bring together the context a large-scale housing strategy depends on: the properties and their condition, the households and their needs, the market and costs, the funding programs, and the City and State agencies. The work would run in three phases:

  • 01 Mapping and research. Existing conditions, parcel by parcel.

  • 02 Needs and resources. The planning frame and what residents need in a home.

  • 03 Industrialized housing strategy. Which houses and lots suit industrialized methods, and how the blocks could be phased.

The final product would be a fundable Industrialized Housing Strategy Plan: the plan UEM takes to funders to move into design and the phases that follow. The phases follow the process BMOD developed for a Westport rowhouse pilot under the EPA Thriving Communities grant.

How it connects to the six activities

  • 01 Impact. Introductions to City and State agencies and their investment programs, meetings with funders and a UEM advisory group, and residents’ input on what they need in a home.

  • 04 Develop. Parcel-by-parcel research, a planning-level program and a space program for each home type, the blocks that could be grouped into orders large enough for production at scale, and phasing with order-of-magnitude costs and likely funding.

  • 02 Design, 03 Make and 05 Work, in later phases. A design strategy pairing offsite with onsite; cost reviews comparing factory-built and site-built homes, plus a local supply chain of fabricators; and workforce partners for job training matched to the project’s jobs.

Where it stands

UEM is reviewing BMOD’s draft proposal. Any later phases would be proposed separately if UEM goes ahead. We will share more here as the plan takes shape, with UEM’s okay.