Baltimore County officials broke ground Monday on the $7.4 million Sollers Point Multi-Purpose Center, which will stand at the gateway to the historic Turners Station neighborhood and offer residents an auditorium, gym, full-service county library and community museum.
"This is a true multipurpose building, not something cobbled together," said Dunbar Brooks, a 30-year resident of the neighborhood in eastern Baltimore County. "It will serve the needs of the entire community."
County officials said construction of the 28,000-square-foot building will begin Nov. 1. The center promises space for civic and church groups, as well as area youths and seniors.
"This is really a much-needed, new beginning for this community," said Alberta Curbean, a lifelong resident of the 188-acre enclave established in 1888 for African-American workers at Sparrows Point and their families.
County Executive James T. Smith Jr. said the center will have a positive impact on the 3,000 residents who call Turners Station home.
"People can interact, exercise, study and compete here," said Smith, who is leaving office next month but promised to return for the ribbon-cutting in about a year.
Dundalk is undergoing its own renaissance, the signature program of the Smith administration, which has worked to revitalize older neighborhoods. The county will break ground Thursday on a $78.6 million complex to house Dundalk and Sollers Point Technical high schools. The present Sollers Point High School, once a segregated junior and senior high and the alma mater of most longtime Turners Station residents, occupies a 1948 building that will be razed when the new school opens in 2013. The two schools will then share one building on Dundalk High's Delvale Avenue campus.
Although losing a building at the core of the neighborhood for 62 years is bittersweet, "we will keep the history of our school in our hearts," said Gloria Nelson, vice president of the Turners Station Conservation Team.
The museum in the center will house exhibits to showcase the school and highlight the contributions of residents.
"As far as artifacts for the community museum, you better believe we have those," Brooks said.