---
title: Restoring a Main Street’s ‘Charm’
date: 2024-12-05T05:30:00-05:00
author: University of Maryland
canonical_url: "https://today.umd.edu/restoring-a-main-streets-charm"
section: Articles
---
# Restoring a Main Street’s ‘Charm’

*December 5, 2024* — by [Maggie Haslam](/author/maggie-haslam)


> Students’ Design Plan Revives Sense of Place for Historic Baltimore Neighborhoods

*ARCH700 Matthews Bell Studio Fall24 5 1920x1080 — Graduate student Miguel Alumbro maps out plans for a portion of Liberty Heights Avenue in West Baltimore. The project, part of an architecture studio course, tasked students to develop a master plan (below) for the area, once a bustling main street for surrounding neighborhoods.*

Architecture student Christophe Tanis discovered a bold way to gauge a neighborhood’s walkability while strolling down a city street in West Baltimore: He estimated the number of inches between him and a speeding bus.

“There’s no safety buffer between the sidewalk and the road, and people are driving so fast,” he said. “It's not a good place for people to walk, period.”

Tanis’ touch with transit on a three-mile stretch of Liberty Heights Avenue this fall was an adrenaline-fueled reminder of its shift from a bucolic main street for shopping, entertainment and services to a busy and mostly barren commuter corridor. Now, he and classmates in a University of Maryland urban design studio are looking to the avenue’s history to devise a master plan that restores its former character and supports the future of its surrounding neighborhoods. The students will present it on Friday to Healthy Neighborhoods, a local organization that connects undervalued neighborhoods with public and private capital, to inform investment goals for the area.


*map showing defined street edge, defines park access, complete nodes: live, work play, affordable dwelling units, healthcare, no vacant lots, community marketplace, adaptive re-use, complete streets and sense of place*




**Topics:** [Campus & Community](https://today.umd.edu/tags/campus-community)


**Tags:** [Urban Studies and Planning](https://today.umd.edu/topic/urban-studies-and-planning), [Student Experience](https://today.umd.edu/topic/student-experience)


**Units:** [School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation](https://today.umd.edu/topic/school-architecture-planning-and-preservation)