New center aiming to better downtown Baltimore could start making a difference soon

A new center aiming to make downtown Baltimore safer and cleaner is closer to opening. 

The Downtown Partnership of Baltimore and the University of Maryland, Baltimore, have been working to open up a Strategic Operations Center (SOC) for the last two and a half years. 

The goal is to have a hub for multiple agencies to work out of.

Thanks to the Maryland Board of Public Works approving $2 million toward the center, SOC's pilot phase is expected to start by the end of this year. 

How will Baltimore's SOC work?

The SOC will utilize dozens of new cameras that will be posted around the downtown area. Some of the cameras and other technology that the SOC will use are already in the city. 

"It is ordered, it's here," said Shelona Stokes, president of the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore.

Stokes said when the new cameras are up and running, they'll be monitored 24/7. Other technology will be keeping an eye out for anything amiss, to report back to the center and coordinate a response. 

The best part, according to Stokes, is that the technology is self-learning. 

"The technology continuously scans for that behavior: Nobody should be putting graffiti on our walls, nobody should be falling out in the street, trash cans shouldn't overflow," Stokes said. "So, this technology allows us to put [those behaviors] in those alerts, and it says when it happens. [It then] sends an alert back to our hub, and we can deploy the right resource for that response." 

Law enforcement, non-profits and other organizations will be working together through the center. 

The pilot phase, which is expected to start later in 2025, will aim to work out all of the kinks. 

So far, $20 million has been raised for the center. More will be needed to fully open it, but it's not clear exactly how much more funding is needed. 

The need for SOC 

The owners of Krazy Street Food haven't been in downtown Baltimore for long, but they've already had a fair share of incidents they'd like to forget. 

One of those incidents got caught on their security camera. It happened in early June one morning, a group of juveniles walked past the front of their eatery. 

As one of them passed, he shattered the front door. 

However, a scarier incident happened behind Krazy Street Food. 

"My husband was taking out the trash at 8 p.m. on a random night," one of the owners said. "Where our trash can is, [two juveniles] pulled out a little gun on him. We don't know if it was a real gun; we don't know if it was a water gun. Thankfully, nothing happened to my husband. They just took his inhaler."

These are just some of the reasons the business owners want to see something like the SOC come to life sooner, rather than later. 

Robin Diaz was in Baltimore for the first time, attending a conference. He said he's supportive of anything for safety.

"Everyone I talk to seems nice, but they all warn me," Diaz said. [Telling me] downtown is not the place where you wanna walk around at night and explore the city if you don't know where you're going."