Wiley H. Bates High School in Annapolis, Maryland, a cultural landmark that sat vacant for more than 20 years, has been reinvented as Wiley H. Bates Heritage Park, a development incorporating housing for low-income seniors, community services for seniors and young people, and a museum of the school and its community. Bates School, which opened in 1933, was the city’s first freestanding secondary school for African Americans and was named after a local man who was born into slavery and later became one of Annapolis’s wealthiest citizens.
More than just an example of the successful redevelopment and integration of a closed military base with its community, The Glen is also a textbook example of how a town can build consensus among its citizens and marshal its resources to obtain the best outcome for a challenging real estate opportunity.
Transforming the historic Portland Armory into a performing arts center required a thoughtful approach as well as creative financing and design. Built in 1891, the armory stood for many years as one of its neighborhood’s defining elements, but by the turn of the 21st century it was in dire need of repair. Armed with a sales pitch for his partners and a plan for Portland Center Stage (PCS)—the city’s premier theater company—to raise funds to buy the armory, local developer Robert Gerding set out to convert the former fortress into a permanent home for PCS by reconstructing its distinctive facade and installing a state-of-the-art theater within. The redeveloped Gerding Theater achieved LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification at the Platinum level, becoming the first building on the National Register of Historic Places, as well as the first performing arts center, to do so.
Although it is the second-largest 19th-century building in Portland, the armory has a footprint of only 20,000 square feet (1,858 m2). And the theater required 55,000 square feet (5,110 m2). The solution was to excavate 30 feet (9 m) below street level—requiring extensive shoring—to create enough volume to fit a 200-seat “black box” theater (placed underground), a 599-seat main theater, rehearsal spaces, and administrative offices.
