The annual report of the Roland Park Co., of Baltimore, makes a showing that, considering the extreme business depression of the last year and a half, is quite remarkable. The Roland Park Co. is engaged in developing a fine suburban residence park north of Baltimore, three or four miles from the centre of the city. The first building operations were begun in October, 1892. The first house was completed early in the spring of 1893. On the 30th of December, 1893, the date to which the annual report is brought down, the residences built and under construction represented a total cost of more than $300,000. In the space of a year a locality that was in effect nothing more than farm property has been transformed during a period of unprecedented financial and business stagnation into a beautiful and rapidly growing residence suburb, with all the comforts and conveniences and appurtenances of life in the thickly built up part of the city. Between thirty and forty families have moved out to the park for permanent residence, and are living in houses that cost from $4000 to $15,000 each. At the initiation of this enterprise there was not a man in Baltimore who would have looked for such development as this, even with favorable business conditions.
Baltimore is an anomaly in this matter of suburban residence. Up to two or three years ago the city had no rapid transit, and consequently no suburban development. Its half million people lived in compactly built rows of brick houses, having neither front nor side yards. The enterprise of the Roland Park Co. was the first suburban development undertaking of a high class and on a large scale. Messrs. Jarvis and Conklin, of Kansas City and New York, who have invested in this country something over $30,000,000 of English money, bought 500 or 600 acres of land immediately north of Baltimore, and proceeded to develop it as a first-class residence suburb. An avenue 120 feet wide was constructed through the property, and a double track electric road was built through the property to a resort at Lake Roland, and coming down to the centre of the city at the City Hall and postoffice. A system of water works, a complete scientific sewerage system, paved roadways, asphalt sidewalks, along which shade trees were set out, and electric lights and other conveniences and accessories to comfort were provided. Under the management of Mr. Edward H. Bouton, the vice-president and general manager of the company, the progress that has been made in the actual building up of the locality has been much beyond what was expected, and there are many reasons for the assurance that this will seem small in comparison with the progress that will be made during the coming spring and summer.
The present high rate of taxation in the city proper, and the recent large expenditures for public improvements that will necessitate an early increase in the tax rate are tending to send people into the suburbs. This and many other potent causes point to a rapid building up of Baltimore’s suburban territory.
Substantial Improvement at Atlanta.
Real estate is getting active at Atlanta. One firm alone, since January 1st, has sold $128,000 worth of property in the city and vicinity. Samuel Goode, a realty expert, gives the following opinion of the outlook in Atlanta:
“The practical certainty that the United States prison will be located in Atlanta, the direct probability that the Grand Army of the Republic will hold its next convention here, and the settled fact that the greatest exposition ever seen in the South will be opened here in 1895—these things combined have given our people hope and confidence in the continued rapid growth of Atlanta, and the timid have begun to find courage enough to turn their money loose for loans and direct investments in real estate. Indeed, the change for the better has been very perceptible to dealers in the last sixty days. It is not any particular advance in prices which is so marked, because, in this respect there has never been any falling off, but it is the fact that people are beginning to buy at the normal prices. The best prices realized for property at all have been obtained within the past six months.
“Another evidence of returning confidence and activity is found in the desire and willingness of owners to sell their property at auction. We already have a variety of property to be thus sold early this spring. There has been a spirit of fairness and liberality manifested by our citizens, one towards another, in the past year, which is truly commendable; and the result is that creditors basing their security upon real estate have not forced property for sale and broken prices and distressed if not ruined their debtors; but they have exercised a wise forbearance, and will soon be rewarded by full payment of all that is due them, and values have been sustained in Atlanta as in no other city within my knowledge. All signs point to an active spring market, and to the investing here of much outside capital.”
Suburban Development at New Orleans.
A syndicate of St. Louis people is constructing a suburban residence park at New Orleans. A body of land recently bought for that purpose measures about 700 feet frontage on St. Charles street by 8000 feet deep. The plans call for an ornamental entrance in the middle of the front, and a graveled driveway through the middle of the plat. As projected the entrance will be defended by handsome gates, the carriage opening being about 100 feet wide, and two gates for foot passengers on either side. Electric lights, prettily arranged, will stud the edge of the arch leading to the apex, where an ornamental structure of iron work will support additional bulbs. About 1500 feet of roadway have been built, leading from the gateway back into the grounds, while equal distances of Schillinger pavement have been laid on either side. A plat has been reserved in the middle for shade trees and shrubbery.
The Capital City Real Estate and Investment Company, with a capital stock of $30,000, has been organized at Austin, Texas. H. P. N. Gammel is president.