There's an old campus on Ellerslie Avenue in North Baltimore that has been a lot of things over the past century. On Wednesday, Sept. 30, it officially became something new again: home to 83 affordable apartments.
Homes for America cut the ribbon that day on Clare Court II at 3725 Ellerslie Ave., in the Waverly/Ednor Gardens-Lakeside area. According to Baltimore Fishbowl, the project cost $31 million, and every apartment is affordable to households earning between 30% and 60% of the area median income.
"The housing crisis is immense, and this is just a very small dent. We are serving people with median incomes from 30% to 60%," Homes for America President and CEO Dana Johnson told WBAL.
Three kinds of construction on one site
What makes this one interesting from a builder's point of view is that it wasn't one job. It was three.
The 30 original apartments on the campus were renovated. Another 12 apartments were carved out of former convent space through adaptive reuse. And a new three-story building added 41 apartments. The project also renovated shared amenities in the restored Stone House Community Center, including a business center, a fitness room, a kids' nook and a kitchen.
Five of the units are permanent supportive housing for people coming out of homelessness.
The campus has deep roots. It covers eight acres and was first developed in 1917 by the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi as the St. Elizabeths Home for Female Colored Orphans, Baltimore Fishbowl reported. Over the years it also served as a school for children with special needs, a residential high school, and the Franciscan Sisters of Baltimore's motherhouse, novitiate and infirmary for elderly sisters. Clare Court II is an expansion of the original Clare Court community there.
Construction began in May 2025, which puts the whole thing at roughly 16 months from start to ribbon-cutting. When Homes for America announced its financing closing in spring 2025, it said the renovations would wrap up later that year and the new construction would be complete in May 2026, so the plan had the existing buildings finishing first.
Southway Builders, a construction management firm founded in 1991, handled construction. Homes for America listed Southway on its development team when it closed on the project, and Southway publicly thanked the team for the renovation, the convent conversion and the new building after completion. Hord Coplan Macht, Cinnaire and Habitat America, which manages the property, were also on the team.
Rents and the money behind them
The rents are the kind of numbers Baltimore renters don't see much in new construction. A one-bedroom rents for $1,160 a month, a two-bedroom for $1,393 and a three-bedroom for $1,603, according to Baltimore Fishbowl.
Clare Court II is one of the first projects in Baltimore backed by the city's Housing Accelerator Fund and HOME-ARP money, both tied to federal American Rescue Plan dollars. It also drew financing from the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development, Baltimore City, Cinnaire, the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation and Maryland state bond funds.
State Housing Secretary Jake Day was at the ribbon-cutting, along with City Councilwoman Odette Ramos, Del. Regina T. Boyce and resident Molene Martin.
"Clare Court is a great example of this work, creating affordable units and community amenities for residents while retaining character and history in redevelopment," Day said. "This project shows what we can accomplish in partnership — when nonprofits, developers and government work together to create more housing and more opportunities for Marylanders to thrive."
The need is still huge. Baltimore Fishbowl pointed to Baltimore Beat reporting from February that put the city's housing shortage at 33,000 units, even with high vacancy rates.
Why it matters for Contractors
Clare Court II is a good template for the kind of affordable work that's out there in older Baltimore neighborhoods: renovation of existing apartments, historic adaptive reuse and a modest new building, all on one site and one schedule. That mix rewards contractors who can juggle renovation, historic conversion and new construction on one schedule, and bring century-old buildings up to modern code. Getting it done in about 16 months on layered public and philanthropic financing is a credit to the team. For subs, Southway Builders and developer Homes for America are names to know, and with city, state and philanthropic money still flowing into projects like this one, more conversions of old institutional campuses like this one could come up for bid.