Dedicated volunteers prepare to complete SAFE Center
After four years of planning, building and overcoming challenges, the SAFE Center in one of the Baltimore’s most underserved communities is nearing completion.
A project of the nonprofit Safe Alternative Foundation for Education, the 3,200-square-foot center on South Payson Street will provide area teenagers and young adults with opportunities to explore career opportunities in construction, gain core skills and earn certifications in carpentry. The center has been designed to include a workshop and classroom space in order to deliver National Center for Construction Education (NCCER) accredited training programs in construction trades.
Fifteen BC&E member companies have banded together to help create the SAFE Center for construction education in Baltimore. Photo courtesy of John Stahl.
BC&E member companies, who have long supported the foundation’s after-school and young adult construction education programs, volunteered to help design, engineer and build the new center.
“This is the beauty of the BC&E. People totally rose to the occasion to support this project,” said John Stahl, former president of the BC&E Foundation and Vice President-Sales at Swirnow Building Systems. “Everybody stayed on top of the project. They figured things out and they got things done.”
That path has not been easy.
The project plan involves repurposing three vacant townhomes, including one that was converted into a carwash. The buildings were suffering from age and neglect. Several floors were not level and the ground floor of the former carwash had been sloped to allow water to drain. The second-story floors of the buildings did not align because the upper floor of the middle house had been pushed higher to accommodate the high bay of the carwash.
The initial group of BC&E members who visited the site, feared the only option would be to tear the rowhomes down.
However, GWWO Architects developed a plan to transform the space in order to keep costs down but still create the desired facilities.
In recent months, MK Consulting Engineers completed site work engineering to ensure that a ramp into the building could be properly graded and installed according to code. Excell Concrete Construction tackled the project’s exterior concrete requirements and Baltimore Fabrication crafted and installed the custom railing and canopy.
Inside, professionals from James Posey Associates, Hatzel & Buehler, Ariosa & Company and Temp Air Company have been designing and installing all new plumbing, heating, cooling, ventilation and electrical systems.
Cap Ex Advisory Group approached the project team and offered to help with permitting and project management for the partly volunteer construction effort.
In total, 15 BC&E member companies have committed to the project: Ariosa & Company, Baltimore Fabrication, Bunting Door and Hardware, Cap Ex Advisory Group, Excell Concrete, Floors Etc, GWWO Architects, Hatzel & Buehler, Henry J. Knott Masonry, James Posey and Associates, Leonard A. Kraus Co., MK Consulting Engineers, Swirnow Building Systems, Temp Air Company, and The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company.
“We appreciate that all these member firms committed to this project. It will benefit the community and the industry at the end of the day,” Stahl said.
Recently, the project secured the permit to proceed with the remaining interior work, Stahl said.
Based on that approval, the project team is now preparing to hold a grand opening in July.
To date, “we have been working on this project for four years and two months,” said Van Brooks, Founder and Executive Director of the Safe Alternative Foundation for Education. “But it is worth it.”
Brooks estimates that annually he will be able to provide four cohorts of 12 students, aged 18 to 24, with the training program that leads to a carpentry certification. In addition, the center will support the foundation’s summer, construction trades program for high school students which Brooks is currently expanding from a one-week training to a five-week course. It will also support the foundation’s after-school program, which enables middle school students to explore construction trades.
That array of programs can produce impressive results, Brooks said.
Some students from the foundation’s middle school program have gone on to enroll in high schools where they can complete a construction trades program. One former participant in the middle school program is currently a construction trades student at Carver High School and plans to return to the foundation to earn a carpentry certification through the SAFE Center, he said.