BALTIMORE — The year 2025 marked a time when Baltimore put a check mark next to two capital projects that have been stuck in the talking stages for too long to remember.

Little noticed, except by annoyed drivers on the North Avenue Bridge, was the eight-month rebuild of the Howard Street Tunnel. The tunnel was lowered so that shipping containers, double-stacked on a freight car, can pass under the streets of Baltimore in a brick-lined tunnel built, by hand, in the 1890s.

Workers are still finishing the final hurdles to the project, but the main underground rail passageway from M&T Bank Stadium to Mount Royal Avenue was completed in September. The final obstacles remain — the reconstruction of a North Avenue Bridge span and an elevated crossing over the railroad on Harford Road near Clifton Park.

Workers recently rebuilt the Guilford Avenue bridge in Charles Village, where the railroad runs along a stretch of trackage once called the Baltimore Belt Line.

Once these are wrapped up, watch for the fully loaded freight trains to go through Baltimore as planned for so many years. The timetable calls for completion by March 2026.

The bulldozers and heavy equipment made short work of Pimlico Race Course this past summer. The old barns, clubhouse and grandstands fell as the state of Maryland prepares to build a state-of-the-art track on the old site. Watch for the new steel to rise in 2026. Parts of the old seating area were more than 100 years old and clearly looked like they dated from the Seabiscuit-War Admiral era.

There’s been a transformation in progress at the nearby Park Heights neighborhood as well. Blocks of older townhouses have been cleared for new developments, including the Terraces at Park Heights.

Fires made the news as they claimed Baltimore landmarks. A September afternoon blaze took many buildings being reserved for potential redevelopment at Howard-Lexington and Fayette streets. This remains one of the more neglected parts of downtown despite the work completed by developers to bring new apartments along Park Avenue, adjacent to the Martick’s bar and restaurant site, and at Park and Saratoga.

Another blaze, on a cold November night, heavily damaged the upper floors of the old Northern Police Station on Keswick Road in Hampden. The building is now known as the Castle, for good reason.

More recently, another Hampden institution, the Falkenhan’s Hardware store, at Chestnut and 34th streets, also burned.

The brick towers of the Seagram-Calvert Distillery in Relay came down this year. For decades, they held barrels of blended whiskey and other spirits before they were demolished in 2025.

Renovation work continued in 2025 on the Ellicott Mill, the sprawling industrial complex known over the years as the Washington Mill or, more popularly, the Doughnut Factory on the Oella side of Ellicott City. Developer David Tufaro, who renovated old mills along the Jones Falls in Baltimore, plans a mixed-use residential development. He’s working with Southway Construction on the $85 million piece of historic preservation.

The Ellicott Mill was served by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad for decades and was likely the railroad’s first major freight customer, about 1830 or so. One of the railroad’s legacies to Baltimore is the B&O Museum, at Pratt and Poppleton streets, which embarked on a $38 million rebuilding project this year.

It’s a big jump ahead for this Southwest Baltimore collection of mighty steam and diesel locomotives, passenger and freight cars. Designed by Design Collective, the museum rebuild and refurbishment is timed for the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the B&O.

“This is transformative for us,” said Kris Hoellen, the museum’s director, in a Sun story last month. “And it’s transformative for Southwest Baltimore.”

Along North Avenue, more new homes rose and sold in the heart of Reservoir Hill. The West North Avenue Development Authority, a state of Maryland agency, is now tackling the renovation of vacant houses near Coppin State University.

There was a big land transfer in Greektown and Highlandtown when a group headed by developer Bill Struever bought the old Crown Cork and Seal industrial campus. Nearly 130 different small businesses are housed within this maze of industrial buildings and there’s plenty of space for future growth. This one may take years to transition.

Johnston Square, a city neighborhood along Greenmount Avenue and just north of the Maryland Penitentiary, had a banner year. Its new apartment house, the Hammond, opened, as did a branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library. And a small street, Mura Street, also saw a concentrated rebuilding initiative.

There’s a lot of good news in this part of Baltimore, where the community nonprofit, ReBuild Metro, remains hard at work. The old Detrick & Harvey Machine Works (and later a Yellow Cab repair shop) will become a new $25 million small-business hub. Watch for the work to begin soon at Greenmount and Preston.

And, last not but least and just in time for the holidays, curious visitors stepped inside Mount Vernon Place Methodist Church after it was sold to UNITED Mount Vernon Inc., a nonprofit pledged to the preservation of this remarkable neighbor to the Washington Monument.

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