One-Time Home Of Mondawmin Mall Target Gets Makeover
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- The infamous abandoned Mondawmin Mall Target is about to get a makeover.
Community leaders revealed on Tuesday that the vacant building, which once housed the popular big box store, has been purchased and will be used to improve the community.
The 127,000 square foot building will be turned into a community hub called the Touchpoint Empowerment Center.
"We're going to ensure that these citizens of this community have the resources they need to grow," Calvin Butler, COO of Exelon, said.
Butler co-founded the nearby TouchPoint Baltimore community resource center in 2017.
The specifics of what the site will look like are still being worked out. Project leaders say decisions about its use will be based on community input.
The vision for the space now includes stores for local entrepreneurs to operate, a facility to offer community resources like tutoring, mentoring, expanded workforce readiness programming, a teaching kitchen, and a catering/events space.
"We're really looking forward to rebirth of the space that is all about community here in the greater Mondawmin community," Joe Jones, president and CEO of Center for Urban Families, said.
Urban Families is planning to work with Touchpoint to offer workforce readiness programming.
CEO of construction company Whiting-Turner and Baltimore native Tim Regan purchased the space for $1 million but he says millions more could be invested to start to transform the area around it.
"If you can break the isolation of an underserved neighborhood and get a real exchange of social capital from inside to out and outside to in, you can really start to increase the opportunities for people who are in the community and really encourage investment in the community," said Regan.
Regan previously told WJZ that he "would expect to see some lights shining there the next 10-12 months."
Mondawmin Mall is one of the few shopping centers on the west side of the city where people can buy clothes, food, and other goods.
In 2021 it served as the site of the Maryland Department of Health's COVID-19 vaccination and testing clinics.