Builders: Pair hope to transform the area east of Hopkins Hospital with townhouses running $850,000 and up.

By Lynn Anderson
Sun Staff

July 16, 2005

The word on the street just east of Johns Hopkins Hospital - an area where small trees poke through broken front steps and rows of rat-infested houses stand empty - is that millionaires are moving in.

On Hopkins Row, in the 500 block of N. Castle St., developers Michael and Garrett Goss of Ricco Design & Development are betting that they can turn run-down, 12-foot-wide townhouses into an opulent oasis. Recently, the brothers sold three renovated townhouses for $850,000 apiece, according to settlement documents they produced. They've purchased houses for as little as $12,000 and are spending many thousands more to rebuild them, they say.

Developers have created high-end housing from slums before. As Chicago tears down Cabrini-Green, a notoriously violent public housing complex, developers are building luxury condominiums and a Starbucks. In Baltimore, adventurous residents moved into parts of Bolton Hill and restored blighted rowhouses to their early-20th-century charm.

That's the sort of Cinderella story that the Goss brothers are hoping for. Their optimism is rooted in a $1 billion redevelopment project to create a biotechnology park that's expected to transform neighborhoods near Johns Hopkins Hospital.

To lure upscale buyers, the Goss brothers are outfitting the houses with deluxe extras such as cream-and-gold Jerusalem limestone, Italian cabinetry, bamboo flooring, flat-screen televisions, state-of-the-art security and lighting systems with dozens of ambience settings.

Renewing neighborhood

Charles Jones, 51, who lives on Jefferson Street across from Hopkins Row, said he never expected to see the type of housing he associates with movie stars to be built in his neighborhood. Hopkins Row sits in the police department's sprawling Eastern District, which has recorded 25 homicides and 49 shootings so far this year, according to police.

"I looked at the diagrams and I couldn't believe it," said Jones, a 10-year resident who says he has already received about a dozen letters from real estate agents asking him whether he'd like to sell his rowhouse. "That tells me that this is going to be prime real estate," said Jones, who doesn't plan to sell any time soon.

The Goss brothers, who grew up in Washington but now live in Baltimore, say they are bringing a new level of residential architecture and design to the city. They believe their project will have a domino effect that will help to change the face of the east side, an area that has frustrated city officials who have failed so far to revitalize it. The developers are receiving no financial assistance from the city other than street improvements.

"This is going to be one of the hottest addresses in the city," said Michael Goss, 34, who serves as project spokesman. Besides his 41-year-old brother, who goes by the nickname Gary, the business team includes Division One Architects, a Silver Spring firm that kicked off a flurry of redevelopment in the U Street Corridor of D.C. with a five-house project called Logan Heights.

Division One partner Ali Honarkar said that when his firm broke ground on Logan Heights, the surrounding neighborhood was also undesirable. But its proximity to Howard University and the U Street Corridor, Washington's version of Harlem's 125th Street, proved enticing enough.

The 2,200-square-foot rowhouses sold for between $400,000 and $850,000. Last year, the first buyer sold his house for close to $1 million.

"Our whole attitude is, 'Why wait? Let's just do it,'" said Honarkar, a 1992 graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park. "Let's not wait for the next up-and-coming area. Let's create the next up-and-coming area."

Otis Rolley III, Baltimore's planning director, gushes when he talks about the Hopkins Row project. "It's beautiful, just beautiful," said Rolley, who visited the Castle Street project about two months ago. "They are really pushing the bar, and that excites me. It really is a new day in terms of rowhouse construction and architecture. What they are doing is really creative."

The Hopkins Row project started several years ago with the Goss brothers quietly acquiring rowhouses in the 500 block of N. Castle St. They chose the block because they knew they could buy a large group of houses at once, before real estate prices increased. They also knew that a cohesive redevelopment project had a better chance of success than a piecemeal one.

The Goss brothers started with 12 houses and now own about 26. They're working to find new housing for tenants in some houses. City officials say they've heard no complaints from the neighborhood. Michael Goss, who lives in one of the Castle Street houses, knows most of his neighbors by name and has hired some to work on the project.

Opulent details

Tours on Hopkins Row begin on the front steps of 520 N. Castle St., which will serve as the model house for the project. Although it is not yet finished, the residence's facade is already dramatically different. A long, S-shaped structure hugs the front of the house, creating a canopy that shades the roof deck as well as the street-level porch and entry.

Inside, the house's vertical space is divided into roughly five levels, starting with a basement studio complete with a sunken garden, living area, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. Next comes the entry level, which includes the front door and two foyers. The "sleeping level" comes next, with a master bedroom and bathroom at one end and another bedroom and bathroom at the other. The "loft level" offers an expansive living area as well as a kitchen and dining space. Beyond that, there's a rooftop deck with an outdoor kitchen and a massive gas grill.

Interior extras include bamboo, teak and marble flooring; hand-cut granite kitchen counters; imported kitchen cabinets, flat-screen televisions in every bedroom as well as the loft and studio living areas; Bose stereo speakers throughout the house, including the bathrooms; and lighting that can be programmed to create the desired ambience. There's a security system with alarms, cameras, and locks that read fingerprints. Retinal scanners come optional. Ten-foot-high walls protect the backyard.

"We have convened a fabulous team of designers because we wanted to be original," said Michael Goss. "The concepts are unlike anything that you will find in Federal Hill or the Ritz Carlton."

Salable investment

Coldwell Banker Realtor Melvin Knight, who sells both residential and commercial properties in the city, said the area east of Johns Hopkins Hospital is ripe for residential projects such as Hopkins Row. The new biotech park is going up just north of the project, and there are plans to renovate the Northeast Market, a major anchor along the Monument Street commercial corridor.

"I think they are in the right place at the right time," he said. "I only wish I was their Realtor."

Two of the three houses sold by the Goss brothers were purchased by a small investment firm based in North Carolina. Several of the firm's partners found out about the project and jumped at the chance to get in early on a project that they say could net their clients thousands of dollars. As for the urban grit that surrounds the houses, including dilapidated housing, snapping Rottweilers and wandering drug dealers, the partners say they aren't worried.

"Some people can't envision something until they see it up close," said Joseph Mani, vice president of North American Investments LLC. "But we see it. It is going to look like some of the streets in Georgetown. That is why we were interested in taking hold of that property and keeping hold of it. In one or two years, these houses are going to go for $1.5 million."

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