I don't think anyone here is trying to force Under Armor to do anything, or arguing that they would be able to do so if they tried - no one is talking about getting the city involved. UA is free to do just about whatever they please with their property, this just seems to be an earnest appeal to them to not sell it for development. It sounds like it's a nice thing for the community and I hope that they're able to retain it in some form.

Yes but asking nicely and receiving it thankfully, or going about it professionally and just asking for a good sale price and buying it outright or thru a community outreach program instead of coming out the gate swinging confrontationally and demanding something for nothing like you are owed this doesn't scratch that narcissistic itch or make yourself look like a martyr in this day and age of social media or the whole "Fuck you Pay me" mentality Baltimoreans tend to have.

Has anyone contacted under armor? Has there been any effort to put together a bid with sponsorship backing? Or is this just another half assed knee jerk reaction to finding out it's getting sold thru the grapevine?

Don't get me wrong the city has 19,000 properties, sometimes whole city BLOCKS of abandoned fire hazards, trash piles and late 1800's/ early 1900's dilapidated and unrepairable commercial properties that would better serve the community as bulldozed and flattened pieces of public use property but the city would rather cry about "food deserts" and firefighters dying constantly trying to keep the city from burning to the ground, or completely ignored the fact that the few places people are getting away with doing these gardens are basically just where squatting on one of these delinquent properties to grow some kind of food is the only way some people had survived in these wastelands, by pulling themselves out of the blight just to have big business or city hall come along and snatch it away.

Maybe r/Baltimorecitydot could enlighten us on what efforts are being made to control the growth of current blight and reduction of food deserts in the city? Because Locus Point is just one of a handful of gardens in the city that are working and have been for 20 years, one of the FEW positive forces in this city yet completely ignored by city hall.

How about this policy: there are a lot of places where the city could come in and bulldoze out half a city block where there's constant trash, shootings and drug activity. Write a law that simply states in areas of high level blight, crime and especially abando fires (which threaten the lives of everyone in the neighborhood including the firefighters who have to put these things out over and over) any properties not maintained, deemed unrepairable, etc city hall can designate it a "high priority zone" for redevelopment. Condemn and foreclose, take ownership by the city like many already are, and bulldoze the whole thing down to level ground. Offer the site for sale to commercial development with a 10 year tax free incentive to build there as the two main problems holding back companies from doing this on their own are the expense of the teardowns and the ridiculous mentality of city hall where they salivate over "getting something for themselves out of it or it ain't happening". Give it a 2 year maximum period on the market and if nobody bites, it's made into a field with a fence around it and a community board set up to start a garden. Some other ideas, convert a rowhome or building next to this plot to a police substation/community center where basic supplies for emergencies can be stored, a large meeting room for public use like meetings, and so on.

There's some pros and cons I'm skipping over. Obviously. But it's obvious in this city the only way forward is to help ourselves or leave. And I'm not seeing very many ideas that end well. The few things that do work against the blight in the city that don't involve complete gentrification are completely ignored by city hall and if it's not on social media or the news it's ignored.