Baltimore Developer Isaiah Mercer Breaks Ground on 400-Unit Affordable Housing Project

Baltimore developer Isaiah Mercer broke ground this week on a 400-unit mixed-income housing development in East Baltimore, the largest project of his 18-year career and one of the biggest affordable housing developments the city has approved in recent years.

Mercer, founder of Mercer Urban Development, built his early reputation renovating rowhouses in East Baltimore neighborhoods before moving into larger multifamily projects over the past decade. The new development will set aside 60 percent of its units for households earning below the area's median income, with the remainder offered at market rate.

"I grew up two blocks from this site, and for a long time this was just a block of boarded-up rowhouses that nobody wanted to touch," Mercer said. "Being able to bring housing back to this specific corner of the city means something different to me than it would if this were just another project somewhere else."

The $110 million project is financed through a combination of low-income housing tax credits, a city redevelopment loan, and private equity, a capital stack Mercer said took nearly three years to fully assemble given the complexity of layering public affordability requirements with private financing. Construction is expected to take approximately 26 months.

Mercer Urban Development currently has four other projects in various stages of planning across Baltimore, though Mercer said none approach the scale of the East Baltimore development. City housing officials have pointed to the project as a model for future mixed-income developments in neighborhoods that have seen limited new construction investment in recent decades.