The $120 million building prioritizes sustainability and is expected to be a catalyst for the School of Social Work and the University.
Photo: From left, Whiting-Turner President and CEO Tim Regan, Family Support Network Director Karen Brown, School of Social Work student School SGA President Courtney Fullwood, UMB President Bruce E. Jarrell, School of Social Work Dean Judy L. Postmus, state Sen. Antonio L. Hayes, UMB Provost and Executive Vice President Roger J. Ward, and Baltimore Comptroller Bill Henry participate in the School of Social Work’s groundbreaking for its new building at 600 W. Lexington St.
The University of Maryland School of Social Work (UMSSW) aims to bring everyone under the same roof with its new $120 million building, but the school almost needed a bigger tent to fit more than 200 people inside to celebrate the groundbreaking.
The boisterous crowd received its first glimpse of the future for UMSSW at 600 W. Lexington St., where University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) faculty, staff, students, community members, and local dignitaries joined together Thursday, Oct. 17, to help put the first shovels in the ground as part of UMB’s Founders Week celebrations.
The new 127,000-square-foot building will be all-encompassing.
“I want a building that reflects our values — who we are as social workers, who we are as a profession,” said UMSSW Dean Judy L. Postmus, PhD, ACSW. “I want people to look at the building and say, ‘I see the values. I experience the values. I live the values.’ ”
The new home for UMMSW prioritizes sustainability with features like a high-performance building wrap, solar panels, green roof with trees, bike lockers with showers for commuters, and geo-exchange wells underneath the building that are part of a robust energy and emissions system that will make it the first net-zero emissions building in downtown Baltimore. If milestones are met, it is expected the building will be the first LEED-certified net-zero energy building in downtown Baltimore. It also is on track to achieve LEED Platinum for its sustainability construction, the highest level from the U.S. Green Building Council. Whiting-Turner will construct UMSSW’s new building designed by Ballinger.
“It’s important to have a healthy school and a healthy environment,” said UMB President Bruce E. Jarrell, MD, FACS.
In other spaces, it will have gathering spaces including a coffee lounge, a prayer and meditation room with a foot washing station, a lactation room, and flexible rooms for all sizes of team huddles and meetings, including simulation rooms and an assembly hall.
Beyond the list of firsts for sustainability features for UMB, downtown Baltimore, and even the state in some cases, the new UMSSW building will be a catalyst connecting the campus to the community on UMB’s north end when completed in 2027. Concurrently with the school’s construction, UMB is engaging with private developers to reimagine a portion of West Lexington Street, Jarrell said, adding research space, learning and living spaces, retail, and restaurants to activate the north end of campus all day long.
“This is a new beehive of activity that’s going to happen at UMB over the next couple of years, and social work will be at the center of it,” Jarrell said.
The new space will help meet the demand for more social workers across the country. It’s expected that job growth will increase by 7 percent over the next decade, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, a faster than average rate. The school is helping more students affordably achieve that goal through a bevy of fellowship and scholarship options and now offers in-state tuition to Washington, D.C., residents for the MSW program.
“The opportunity for our young people to come into this building and see what opportunities are there for them — that is so impactful,” said the Rev. Karen Brown, DMin, family support director with the Maryland Family Network.