Potee-Garrett Brownfield Project

What is the Potee-Garrett Brownfield?

The Potee-Garrett brownfield is a neglected 17.5-acre contaminated site in the Brooklyn neighborhood. The property addresses are 3700 Potee Street and 101 W. Garrett Street. The site contamination from previous land use, including a land filling, junkyard, and filling station, make it a brownfield. One of the properties is owned by Baltimore City and the other is owned by the State of Maryland. In addition to the site being deemed a brownfield, the site attracts dumping and other nuisance activities. The properties were considered for redevelopment in the 1990s and early 2000’s.

What is Action Baybrook's Involvement?

Action Baybrook, as a community-based nonprofit, has been gathering information about this brownfield since 2019. Part of Action Baybrook’s mission is to find solutions for vacant and problem properties, like this brownfield. With our experience finding solutions for complex properties, Action Baybrook is well-positioned to bring the various stakeholders connected to this brownfield site to the table to both find a solution for site cleanup and build a site redevelopment plan.

What is Action Baybrook's ultimate goal with this project?

Ultimately, we want a site redevelopment plan that is guided and approved by impacted residents and creates a healthier environment for everyone. With successful clean-up and redevelopment of the Potee-Garrett brownfield, there is potential for this site to be transformed into a community asset to meet the needs of residents and Baltimore at large.

What activities has Action Baybrook accomplished to achieve this goal?

Action Baybrook has been communicating with the site’s owners – Baltimore City and Maryland State government representatives – and other stakeholders for several years about solutions for the brownfield and they are supportive of our work. We also connected with technical experts knowledgeable about brownfields, redevelopment options, and how to connect with funding. We built a relationship with the Technical Assistance to Brownfields (TAB) team out of West Virginia University; they provide free guidance and education on brownfield redevelopment to organizations like ours.

Through our relationship with the TAB team, Action Baybrook connected and partnered with an Advanced Landscape Architecture course at West Virginia University. The brownfield was the focus of the course project, and the students developed preliminary design ideas for the brownfield site to explore what redevelopment could look like. Final designs are published on the course website (https://bit.ly/larc450-fall2025).

Action Baybrook also worked hard to apply for grant funding to pay for project activities in 2026, and we have been awarded $150K to carry out stakeholder coordination and community planning activities and assess remediation (brownfield cleanup) and redevelopment options that include looking at financial and environmental feasibility.

What activities will happen in 2026?

During 2026, Action Baybrook is taking on two big actions that will result in a community-approved clean-up and redevelopment strategy for the brownfield site outlining the goals, needs, next steps, and required resources to make the plan a reality.

These actions include:

(1) Establish agreements to support future clean up and redevelopment by convening stakeholder meetings with key stakeholders focused on specific site challenges, and

(2) Facilitate resident-led redevelopment visioning by forming a Steering Committee with five community leaders, hosting education sessions and community visioning meetings, and leading door-knocking events in blocks near the site.

Most of this work will happen in the spring and summer. The strategy will be completed by the end of the year.

Ways to get involved include the project community Steering Committee, attending Action Baybrook project events being scheduled for the spring and summer, and volunteering to support event promotion, including coming out with us to share about the project with neighbors through flyers and door knocking. We will also be updating this website with project updates.

Contact Molly Finch, Project Manager, to connect and learn how you can be involved.