Great transformations

At first glance, existing conditions at the site of a planned $86 million renovation were “a little overwhelming,” said Gary Schucker, Project Manager at Hirsch Electric.

Hirsch and other members of the project team were beginning a massive, adaptive reuse project that would transform Ellicott Mill, a 110-year-old flour mill, into an eight-story, luxury building with 190 apartments.

“When you walked in, you saw all these old conveyor belts, motors and industrial equipment that had to be demolished and removed,” Schucker said. “The concrete in a 110-year-old building is very hard. There are a lot more columns than you see in newer buildings. And the floors and walls are really thick so, obviously, there would have to be a ton of core drilling by all trades.”

However, in land-constrained areas like Central Maryland, ambitious adaptive reuse projects are often the way to make the best use of available sites. That presents construction teams with the challenge of executing one-of-a-kind developments.

Old fashioned collaboration

To transform the 150,000-square-foot Ellicott Mill, contractors did not work from a BIM model. “We worked to align everything in the field. This job depended on old-fashioned collaboration between all the trades,” Schucker said.

Crews would have to execute 67 different apartment designs and craft high-end common areas, including a high-ceiling lobby with a grand stair, an expansive gym, rooftop infinity pool, and indoor and outdoor dining space overlooking the Patapsco River.

They would also have to contend with the mill’s challenging location on a 100-year flood plain.

The first level is in a flood zone so both the project team and county officials had to determine how to design and build a safe facility.

“We ended up with a unique plan,” Schucker said. “Every receptacle on the first floor, all the raceways had to be waterproof. No equipment — wall heaters, major motors or pumps — could be located there. And we had to redesign the garage so all the fans and disconnect switches were above the flood plain.”

Office-to-penthouse conversion

In Locust Point, an adaptive reuse project in a much newer building presented UrbanBuilt with a different set of challenges. The top floor of Anthem House, a nine-story multifamily building, was set to be transformed from the former head office of War Horse Cities into five luxury penthouse apartments.

The existing conditions were extraordinary — expansive glass walls, custom millwork and cabinetry, barn wood doors, high end finishes, and exquisite lighting.

“Of course, we were salvaging a lot of materials because these are things you just don’t throw away,” said Shannon Martin, Project Manager/Business Development at UrbanBuilt. “But that made things tricky for the demo crew. They had to remove it, but not destroy it, take it down from the ninth floor, carefully wrap it and store it.”

The task of moving materials to and from the ninth floor became especially difficult mid-project when extreme temperature shifts caused a sprinkler line to burst and destroy the control panel for the freight elevator.

Crews had to switch to taking the residential elevator to the eighth floor, walking the length of the building, then climbing fire stairs to the ninth floor.

“What had been a one-minute trip became a 15-minute trip,” said Michael Andrew, Project Manager at UrbanBuilt.

Some things were too big to fit into the residential elevator (such as lengths of stone countertop) or too heavy to carry up the fire stairs. Crews also had to be especially meticulous about moving construction materials and garbage through an occupied residential building.

Working around residents added another layer of complexity. Routing services to the new apartments required crews to access five or six occupied residences on the eighth floor and cut through their ceilings, Martin said.

Residents had to move out for a week while “we stuck to a very, very, very tight schedule,” she said. “We overcommunicated because we knew this wasn’t pleasant for anyone. We repainted their apartments, cleaned everything and left them gifts — gift cards, flowers, Edible Arrangements, and handwritten thank you notes.”

New life for old buildings

Not every adaptive reuse project includes such intense challenges.

In downtown Baltimore, Hirsch Electric has worked on the transformation of several old office buildings into multifamily properties, including The Appraiser’s Building and 26 S. Calvert Street/117 Water Street.

Such projects typically “don’t have BIM coordination,” Schucker said. “It’s just a full gut, design-build and there has to be a lot of coordination between the owners and the trades.”

But those efforts deliver stunning results, including two-story loft apartments, vintage staircases, modern designs, high-end finishes, gyms, basketball courts and rooftop pools.

At a former fire station in Clifton Park, UrbanBuilt recently completed a transformation to create new office and program space for the nonprofit, Civic Works.

The construction was reasonably straightforward, but the project required designers and builders to preserve historic aspects — such as the firemen’s pole, circular staircase, tin ceiling and original wooden lockers — while also creating a modern workspace.

“It was a cool project,” Andrew said. “In Baltimore City, there are a lot of older buildings that can go by the wayside. This is an old fire house with a lot of history. It was even the set for ‘Ladder 49.’ And this nonprofit is appreciating that history and also utilizing the space to be an asset to the neighborhood.”

Featured in this article: Hirsch Electric, UrbanBuilt

From Pre-K to the Pros

With more than 300,000 open construction jobs across America currently and projections that construction trades could face an 8 million worker deficit within a decade, contractors are expanding efforts to educate young people about good construction career options. Some of those efforts have gotten more elaborate and inventive.

Tailgating with hardhats

As part of its Crafting Futures initiative, Clark Construction and multiple industry partners hosted a skilled trades expo for middle and high school kids at Northwest Stadium in partnership with the Washington Commanders.

“We had part of the parking lot so we brought in all sorts of heavy machinery that the kids could get up in. And we had an entire plaza filled with more than 30 trade partner booths,” said Kris Manning, COO of Infrastructure at Clark Construction.

Clark and trade partners created an array of hands-on opportunities in those booths.

“Clark brought in a virtual welder where you put on goggles and use a wand to simulate welding,” Manning said. “There were places where kids could mix mortar, put pipes together or build concrete formwork. An iron worker brought a steel beam that was set up five feet above the ground so kids got into harnesses, tied off and walked the beam.”

The event also provided about 800 young people, parents and educators with key information about construction careers.

“There’s a pretty common misconception that construction is only a Plan B for people who can’t get into college. We show people that it’s a legitimate Plan A,” Manning said.

At sports venues, Montgomery Community College and other locations, Clark highlights how the trades offer competitive salaries, opportunities for career advancement and the satisfaction of building facilities that benefit communities. Through its partnership with Monumental Sports & Entertainment and its teams, Clark is able to reach even broader audiences.

Construction camp

Every summer, Rosendin hosts a five-day Camp Build for middle school students. After learning about jobsite safety, students dig into a series of projects: creating decorative concrete blocks, assembling a lamp, soldering copper conduit into a 3D cactus, building and painting dog houses, and learning to drive a forklift.  

Such hands-on experiences at Camp Build and numerous school visits teach kids about career opportunities they may have known nothing about previously, said Violet Carter, Rosendin’s Career and Workforce Development Coordinator.

Carter, a 30-year electrician, reached out to every school in Maryland, Virginia and Washington DC when she started her workforce development job. Now, she does 20 to 26 events each month with people ranging from Pre-K to young adult. She is regularly delighted by the number and variety of students who get enthused about construction work.

“When teachers assume a student won’t pay attention or doesn’t listen, I’ve found those are often the very students who become my best students,” Carter said. “Everybody has a talent. You just have to find it.”

More outreach needed

Such outreach efforts deliver results. Applicants for Clark’s carpentry apprenticeship program rose from 25 in 2024 to 350 this year. Carter — who also supports several organizations for women in construction — has seen the number of young women entering electrical training programs climb.

“I feel if more contractors did outreach to young people, we would have more people entering the construction field,” she said.

The BC&E Foundation conducts Builder In Training (BIT) workshops multiple times a year. Most recently,  member companies Ariosa & Co. LLC, Bunting Door & Hardware Co., Inc./LokTek and the Whiting-Turner Contracting Company provided a hands-on introduction to careers in construction and the trades to 120 Eighth graders in Howard County.

Manning has a simple recommendation for contractors considering an outreach initiative.

“If you’re a smaller company, find a school in your community and partner with them,” he said. “Educators will know which kids are not going to college. If you can connect with just a few kids and create a great experience for the first student or two, you will have instant cheerleaders who can go back to that school in two years, talk about how they are making good money and enjoying their jobs. That will inspire more kids to look at the construction trades as a viable career choice.”

Companies featured in this article: Ariosa & Co. LLC, Bunting Door & Hardware Co., Inc./LokTek,Clark Construction, Rosendin and The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company

Chick Webb Memorial Recreation Center

Creating a center to honor a jazz legend and serve the neighborhood where he grew up was bound to challenge a project team to deliver uncommon and artful results.

The newly expanded and renovated Chick Webb Memorial Recreation Center combines bold, colorful design with elements of history and state-of-the-art recreation facilities.

The East Baltimore facility was originally built in the 1940s by members of the African American community to provide children with a safe place to swim and play.

The new two-story addition, which nearly doubles the center’s size to 33,000 square feet, echoes the historic limestone structure while the patterned glazing creates a lively tribute to Webb’s colorful drum sets. A music staff and notes extend across the sidewalk and music-themed playground. Inside, exhibits document Webb’s life from his childhood in Baltimore to his role as leader of one of America’s most prominent swing bands.

The project, which included extensive renovations of the existing structure, created an array of recreation amenities — a modernized pool, large fitness room, indoor walking track, teen lounge, maker space, catering kitchen, the Founder’s Recording Studio, and an indoor regulation court for basketball, volleyball and pickleball.

Delivering all of those elements required not just expertise, but an ability to quickly contend with challenging conditions.

The 80-year-old building presented a typical litany of issues — asbestos, lead paint, mystery chases and other undocumented details. The pool, which was constructed in 1949 and closed in 2022 after developing severe cracks, included a vintage and discontinued gutter system to recirculate water. Fixing it required the team to make custom, stainless steel parts.

Concrete-encased beams changed a lot of the plans for ceiling elevations and ductwork.

“We had to stretch out ductwork,” said Everett Chambers, Project Manager at CAM Construction. “Instead of using a 12 by 12 piece of ductwork, we made the ducts more linear and used ducts that were 26 wide by six or eight inches in depth.”

The project team knew ahead of time that the site contained soil that wouldn’t compact sufficiently. Crews would have to replace soil to support the new sidewalk and playground and install 30-foot piles to support the addition.

“But then we ran into issues because we found a lot of substructures — abandoned utilities, footers, other things — that never showed up in the soil boring reports,” Chambers said.

Those discoveries forced the team to resequence its boring plan “about 15,000 times,” he said.

Installing the center’s new sprinkler system, however, proved to be the most challenging aspect of the project.

When workers tested the site’s water line, “the flow was not even a sixteenth of what the design pressure for the sprinkler system needed to be,” Chambers said. “We basically had the flow of a garden hose.”

The source of the problem turned out to be a broken main running down Monument Street which Baltimore City Department of Public Works eventually replaced.

The project team, Chambers said, ensured the renovated center could open on schedule by coordinating with DPW and installing the sprinkler system as the water line was rebuilt.

Featured in this article: CAM Construction, Coastal Exteriors, GWWO Architects, MK Consulting Engineers, Temp Air Company

Photos courtesy of CAM Construction.

Show time!

Crews building the $143 million Performing Arts Center and Artists Flats development in Columbia have embraced an uncommon mantra: The show must go on.

The development — which will create three new theaters, a dance studio, classrooms, art gallery and 174 mixed-income residences — is happening on the site of Toby’s Dinner Theatre. Consequently, the project team had to devise ways to enable Toby’s to continue operations even as early construction fully abutted two sides of the existing building.

“The smartest thing our team did was design the building as a whole then figure out how to separate it for two phases of construction,” said Matt Herbert, Principal at Design Collective.

Design Collective and the construction team led by The Whiting Turner Contracting Company collaborated with the developer, the county, the Columbia Center for Theatrical Arts and others to create a phased construction plan that would provide the safety, access, parking and sound control that Toby’s would need for its productions.

Those measures will enable the shows – including Mean Girls and White Christmas – to go on even when construction happens directly on top of Toby’s new theater space during phase 2.

“What impressed me the most is the integration of good acoustical design in the spatial layouts that inherently will provide acoustic buffers while under construction, but also allow for better acoustic performance when the entire project is complete,” Herbert said.

The use of masonry walls will increase mass and the inclusion of corridors will heighten sound isolation both during construction and afterwards. Those measures, he added, will enable the broad array of future activities at the center – from theater productions to dance recitals, art classes, children’s events, everyday residential living and more – to occur without interfering with each other.

The project is scheduled for completion in spring 2028.

School combines modern style with academic tradition

Creating a high tech, business savvy facility on the grounds of a college founded in 1782 presents a distinct design challenge.

In designing the new Warehime School of Business at Washington College, GWWO Architects faced an additional lofty requirement: The building would be located at the intersection of the campus’ academic, athletic and residential areas, and it would be key to framing a new academic quad.

GWWO met those challenges with a design that blends modern and historic elements. While part of the building’s exterior is clad in Washington College’s standard campus brick, a large expanse of the façade is multi-story glazing.

Inside the glass, a large, linear “forum” creates a variety of gathering spaces where students, faculty, alumni and visitors can interact and engage in cross-disciplinary exchanges. A core principle of the new school is to create an interdisciplinary program that combines liberal arts education with global studies to equip students to adapt to the constantly changing business world.

At the project’s groundbreaking ceremony in April, Washington College Interim President Bryan Matthews described the new school as a “game-changer” and the building as both “timely and timeless.”

Renderings courtesy of GWWO Architects. 

BC&E welcomes five new members

Chesapeake Glazing provides commercial glass fabrication and installation, architectural metals, curtain wall and storefront systems, rain screen assemblies, interior glass, design assist and design build. https://www.chesapeakeglazing.com/

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Nichols Contracting, Inc. is a full-service general contractor. Established in 1991, NCI has delivered high-quality construction solutions for federal, state, and local government agencies, as well as private sector clients. https://nicholscontracting.com/

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Seneca Group is a 70-person real estate advisory and project management firm, delivering complex new buildings and interior buildouts for corporate, cultural, healthcare, life sciences, education and other clients. https://senecagroup.com/

Learning Curve

As the school year nears its end, construction crews are gearing up for an intense summer of executing fast-tracked renovations and completing entirely new schools in time for fall.

On top of those demands, clients and project teams in Maryland’s K-12 market are grappling with other growing challenges. Tight budgets, high construction costs and long planning timelines mean teams need to expand their skills in value engineering, supply chain management and efficient (even inventive) design. At the same time, some projects require teams to meet heightened sustainability levels or deliver uncommon programming space.

Next level pre-con

“A problem we are seeing is a lot of budgets were developed years ago and prices have skyrocketed,” said Jonathan Goetz, President of Oak Contracting. “On some projects, we are faced with the need to cut $10 million or $20 million out of a $130 million project. That’s not a question of changing the floor materials. That means cutting programming, cutting square footage.”

That budget crunch is changing the nature of preconstruction work for Oak and other contractors in the K-12 market.

Early in the design process, Oak professionals explore big and novel changes, Goetz said. Those include eliminating shell space that is often included in new schools to accommodate future growth and searching for existing facilities in the community that could house some school functions. Oak also involves subcontractors in early discussions to identify cost-saving options.

“I tell my folks that when you go into a pre-construction meeting, there are no bad questions because we’re facing so many issues now that we haven’t faced before. You have to really think outside the box,” Goetz said.

Similarly, J. Vinton Schafer Construction’s team explores a broad range of project options during the design phase.

“We look at the budgets, schedules and constructability issues, and help find the better route,” said Wayne Gutermuth, Jr., Project Executive at J. Vinton Schafer.  “Does the budget and timeframe accommodate a new build or is it better to renovate a school? Does the existing school have the space, ceiling heights and structure that could meet today’s standards for teaching environments and sustainable buildings?”

For example, the structure of the1950s Homestead Wakefield Elementary School in Harford County “really wasn’t conducive to today’s teaching environments,” so school officials opted to replace it, he said.

The path to creating a viable plan for a new school or renovation/addition can generate a long progression of design changes and opportunities to save money or overspend.

“We’re part of every design meeting so we are seeing the constant iterations of the documents,” said Jonathan Dickinson, Senior Project Executive at Gilbane Building Company. “We provide continuous tracking estimates so everyone can see a running total for the job. You don’t want to go six months and suddenly discover you’ve blown the budget out of the water.”

Construction and renovation plans, Gutermuth added, must address one of the biggest challenges currently facing school systems. “They don’t have the ability to do maintenance. They just don’t have the staff or the budget to maintain their buildings.”

Given schools’ long project timelines, teams also have to exercise added vigilance in anticipating and managing materials and equipment costs, he said. “The whole industry, post-pandemic, has had to come up with new strategies on how to mitigate these risks.”

Extraordinary schools

Amid all of those challenges, teams are delivering modern, sustainable and even extraordinary school facilities.

Oak Contracting is currently building two highly specialized schools.

The 178,000-square-foot Center of Applied Technology – North for Anne Arundel County Public Schools will include modern training facilities for a wide range of trades, including carpentry, electrical, masonry, plumbing, HVAC, diesel and auto repair, aviation, robotics, pre-med, cosmetology and culinary arts.

The William S. Schmidt Outdoor Education Center for Prince George’s County Public Schools is a $55 million project in Brandywine. The complex will include student sleeping cabins, a camp center, a 275-seat dining hall, and outdoor classrooms and pavilion.

“It’s a different kind of construction with more timber-framed construction, a different kind of wood paneling called SIPS paneling and a lot of infrastructure,” Goetz said. “The site is so expansive that we are running fiber optic cable for half a mile to get Internet to the cabins.”

J. Vinton Schafer’s current K-12 projects include a 63,671-square-foot expansion of Dundalk High School/Sollers Point Technical High School. The project includes two separate building additions: a three-story classroom pod and a one-story performing arts wing.

Elsewhere in Baltimore County, Gilbane is constructing the new Scotts Branch Elementary School which will include an extra-large gymnasium, kitchen and activity room to accommodate after-school and other activities by community organizations.

 In Montgomery County, Gilbane is building the new JoAnn Leleck Elementary School, which will include an expanded gym, media center, and outdoor learning area. Like a growing number of schools in Maryland, it is also being built to much higher sustainability standards, Dickinson said.

“Recently, we are seeing a trend to go all electric with school buildings,” he said. “Maryland requires LEED Silver in new schools so that includes light-harvesting in classrooms, low-flow fixtures in washrooms. Montgomery County is doing more geothermal at schools and using white TPO roofing to reduce heat island effect. On the materials side, we are seeing requirements to buy materials within a 500-mile radius. There are also requirements to show where your demo and construction debris goes, and to make sure it is separated and recycled.”

Featured in this article: Oak Contracting, J. Vinton Schafer Construction, Gilbane Building Company

Expertise, discipline needed to contain energy costs

From rising electricity rates to expiring energy incentive programs to the implementation of Maryland’s Building Energy Performance Standards (BEPS), construction clients and their project teams are wrestling with a shifting array of challenges as they try to contain energy costs.

The ability to deliver successful, affordable solutions hinges on some construction fundamentals.

High performance building design

Advanced electrical and mechanical systems, building automation and onsite generation can lower a building’s energy consumption and carbon footprint, but at a hefty and increasing cost.

“You don’t immediately go off and buy the most expensive, highest efficiency HVAC system. There’s a smarter approach to high-performance building design and that involves looking at passive strategies first,” said Sean Soboloski of James Posey Associates.

Soboloski points to the current renovation of the Macklin Tower Library at Montgomery College. Constructed in 1971, the library’s mass walls lacked ample insulation. By adding insulation and completing other building envelope improvements, the project team was able to reduce the size of the HVAC system required in the updated building. The project, he added, is on track to reduce the library’s energy use intensity by 48 percent.

Renovation projects often encounter a prime opportunity for energy efficiency, said Dave Hoffman, President of Gipe Associates. “A lot of older buildings had no ventilation and, since Covid, we have been very aware of the need for ventilation.”

Including energy recovery systems and demand-control ventilation in updated HVAC equipment can boost a building’s energy efficiency, Hoffman said. “Of course, those systems cost money but you typically get a payback within seven years.”

New systems, he added, can deliver other financial benefits. A current renovation of the South Dorchester K-to-8 school in Dorchester County is outfitting the school with a highly efficient geothermal system and relocated HVAC equipment to resolve a long-standing problem the school had with outdoor equipment getting flooded on the school’s low-lying site.

Mechanical and electrical upgrades, however, are becoming more expensive, Hoffman said. Project costs have risen 15 to 25 percent in recent years and federal legislation that will sunset the 30 percent tax credit for solar and geothermal systems could make those technologies unaffordable for many future projects. Solar systems will be eligible for tax credits until 2027 and geothermal systems until 2033.

“The Maryland Energy Administration has a robust program of grants and incentives to offset the costs of improvements and there’s been an uptick in people seeking those financing opportunities,” Soboloski said.

When assessing the costs and benefits of building upgrades, some clients also have to determine what upgrades will be needed to remain in compliance with BEPS and how much alternative compliance fees could cost them if they don’t complete those upgrades, he said.

The well-maintained building

Even the best designed mechanical and electrical systems, however, can fail to deliver expected performance and efficiencies if they are not operated precisely.

“It’s our job to make sure everything actually does work in harmony,” said Vincent Koren, Regional Vice President Mid-Atlantic for Albireo Energy, a building automation contractor.

Optimal building performance depends on employing the right hardware and software to ensure that all the different pieces of mechanical and electrical equipment operate together in concert and respond to the needs of building occupants.

To deliver that performance, “you’re talking about a matter of seconds in equipment staging, in exercising outputs like valves and actuators,” Koren said.

Numerous factors can compromise building performance: programming errors (for example, misidentifying a work holiday), a malfunctioning temperature or CO2 sensor, or “mechanical atrophy where valves don’t quite close,” he said.

Consequently, Albireo recommends that clients bring skilled building automation technicians onsite at least once a month and much more frequently for campuses or buildings with complex operations.

Featured in this article: James Posey Associates, Gipe Associates, Albireo Energy

Blakehurst Retirement Community

The renovation of Blakehurst Retirement Community was driven by one clear and lofty goal: Add a new layer of elegance — and a few wow factors — to an already topline retirement community.

The client and architect crafted a plan to upgrade nearly every public space from the hallways leading to residents’ apartments to the community’s flagship dining room, The Chesapeake. There, crews executed a complete upgrade that features new floors, an accent wall, vaulted ceilings, bold lighting and a new open-concept kitchen that enables diners to see high-end meals prepared.

Elsewhere, crews renovated the aquatic center and locker rooms, expanded an outdoor area for the Terrace Bistro, and transformed the community’s convenience store. They created the new Ridge Pub which features elaborate coiffured ceilings, and completely replaced the community’s main commercial kitchen. In the main entrance and grand stairway, they installed a new stone fireplace, huge pendant chandeliers and other upgrades.

The 2.5-year, 10-phase project required crews to not only deliver exquisite results but operate with extra care.

“We could be demolishing a ceiling grid, tearing out wallpaper or ripping up carpet in a hallway when an 80-year-old resident would walk out of their apartment and into an area where we were working. And since the hallways in the resident tower are only six feet wide, we couldn’t put a temporary partition down the middle and work on one side,” said Mark McGovern, Project Manager at Mullan Contracting. “I told everyone to treat this job like you’re working in someone’s living room. If anybody walks through, stop what you’re doing and be nice to them. They also had to maintain a very clean, orderly construction site.”

The phased renovation of public spaces, restaurants and other areas meant that extensive communication with the client, project partners and Blakehurst residents was also essential.

“I would go to community events in their auditorium and directly communicate with residents,” McGovern said. “Sometimes, there were over 250 people and I’d spend an hour answering their questions.”

The construction team faced other challenges.

Successive, previous alterations to electrical systems presented crews with existing conditions that didn’t meet code. Remediating those issues nearly doubled the cost of the project’s electrical work.

When it came time to rebuild the main commercial kitchen, the team had to devise a new way to meet the community’s food-preparation requirements.

“We brought in tractor trailers to create temporary kitchen facilities,” McGovern said.

A 53-foot trailer positioned at Blakehurst’s loading dock was outfitted as a full commercial kitchen. Another 24-foot trailer functioned as a dishwashing facility and two storage units provided cold storage and dry storage.

While the results of all the construction efforts are beautiful, McGovern says the best result of the project is unseen. “In two and a half years of construction, working around all those people, we didn’t have a single injury to a resident, a Blakehurst worker or any of my people.”

Featured in this article: Mullan Contracting, Ariosa & Company, Spellman Brady Interior Design, Moseley

BC&E Foundation News Round Up

Big Impact, Big Future

In April, 120 eighth graders from Howard County Public Schools (Murray Hill Middle, Harper’s Choice Middle and Patuxent Valley Middle School) got a hands-on introduction to careers in construction and the trades as part of the BC&E Foundation’s Builders-in-Training Workshop.

Thank you to Paula Baher from IEC Chesapeake, who helped coordinate, present, and host the workshop. BC&E Partners Ed Fincham with Ariosa & Company, LLC, John Stup from Bunting Door & Hardware Co., Inc./LokTek, and Daryl Vargas and Brittany Perigo from The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company engaged with students and provided valuable insights and hands-on learning experiences.

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Foundation grants support trades training for students

The BC&E Foundation has awarded 10 grants totaling $22,400 to Maryland schools and nonprofits providing construction trades training to young people.

“There is certainly a lot of need out there for this kind of funding,” said Curtis Dalsimer, Chair of the BC&E Foundation Grant Committee. “We received strong applications from programs across the greater Baltimore area.”

The Foundation received 19 applications, about half were new applicants to our program.

“It’s great that we were able to spread our resources out more,” Dalsimer added.

The Foundation prioritized programs that provide hands-on training to high school students and that clearly need support to cover the high cost of materials.

Grants went to schools and programs in Baltimore City and four surrounding counties:

• Carroll County Career and Technology Center Welding program — $2,200
• Carroll County Career and Technology Center HVAC program — $1,700
• Carroll County Career and Technology Center Masonry program — $2,000
• Carroll County Career and Technology Center Drafting program — $2,000
• Landsdowne High School Electrical program — $2,500
• Anne Arundel Career and Technical Education North — $2,500
• Howard Community College, Skilled Trades Program — $2,500
• Baltimore City ArchiNext — $2,500
• ACE Mentorship of Baltimore — $2,000
• Kennedy Kreiger — $2,500