A former general store at 4515 Harford Road will be renovated to provide 19 apartments and retail space after a development team led by MCB Real Estate obtained financing to move ahead with construction. MCB announced this month that it has secured $6.3 million in financing to renovate the M arkley building, which was constructed in 1912 and has been vacant for more than a decade. The completed project will be known as The Markley. The three-story building is just south of The Enolia, a $58 million, 151-unit, 473-bed student housing development by MCB that opened in 2025 and is master-leased to Morgan State University. The Markley was planned as a companion to The Enolia, at 4529 Harford Road. It was built to house a general store where items such as farm seed and equipment were sold to area farmers and others. It also was used as a warehouse to store coal. Until 1955, it was home to the Markley family, the store’s operators. MCB, the developer of Harborplace and other real estate projects in Baltimore, acquired the Markley building as part of an assemblage that included the footprint for The Enolia. Hamilton-Lauraville Main Street (HLMS) approached MCB about preserving the building and agreed to work with MCB to raise the funds needed to save it and put it back in use. Development partners MCB’s partners in The Markley include HLMS, Opal Companies, and Reimagine Development Partners. Alexander Design Studio is the architect. Hencken Gaines is the general contractor and Traceries is the preservation consultant.   The financing package includes a $2.5 million construction loan from WesBanco; a $2.7 million bridge loan from the Neighborhood Impact Investment Fund and a $1.1 million investment from RDP and OPAL, supplementing a historic tax credit award from the Maryland Historic Trust and grant funds that HLMS received from the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development. The Neighborhood Impact Investment Fund is the bridge lender and RDP and OPAL are the federal historic tax credit investment partners. “For too long, projects that cost less than $10 million have struggled to attract the capital they need,” said Will Bradshaw, CEO of RDP, in a statement. RDP is a New-Orleans based investment firm that specializes in tax credit equity financing for historic rehabilitation projects. “Others might call these projects small, but they are not insignificant to their neighbors or the people that ultimately call them home,” Bradshaw said. Boosting revitalization efforts The development team is aiming to finish work by the summer of 2027. When complete, the building will contain 900 square feet of retail space at street level and 19 one- and two-bedroom apartments above. MCB is negotiating with a neighborhood-owned business to open its first brick-and-mortar store in the retail space. The project is expected to help boost revitalization efforts along the Harford Road corridor. “We’ve worked alongside MCB since 2022 on the redevelopment of the 3.6-acre brownfield site that now houses the Enolia and will soon see the Markley renovation completed” said Daniel Doty, Executive Director of HLMS, in a statement. “This project builds on other investments we have made — turning a vacant gas station into a community gathering place at The Lot and facilitating reinvestment in several vacant storefronts that now house wonderful community retailers.” “This transformation shows what is possible when anchor institutions, non-profit partners, state and city agencies, and community development financial institutions work with the private sector to inject new energy and vitality in local communities,” said Amy Bonitz, MCB’s Managing Director of Community Development, in a statement. “Together with the Enolia, The Markley will complete our efforts to create a new center of the robust activity on the Harford Road Main Street that serves Morgan State University and the seven surrounding neighborhoods,” said MCB project executive Reni Lawal. ...read more read less