Community leaders along with Baltimore city officials cut the ribbon on the $8.8 million new Greater Model Aquatic Center yesterday, eager to signal a new chapter for the facility and the Poppleton neighborhood.

Mayor Brandon Scott assigned his stepson Ceron to come to the microphone and read his upbeat remarks. “For so many years, neighborhoods like Poppleton were overlooked when it came to building new facilities like this one,” the boy said, while Scott looked on. “Together we’re doing the work to counter decades of disinvestment.”

Also assembled on the concrete pool deck were U.S. Rep. Johnny Olszewski, Council President Zeke Cohen, Senator Antonio Hayes (D, 40th), Comptroller Bill Henry, and Recreation and Parks director Reginald Moore.

Behind them was the new facility – a family pool, a six-lane lap pool and a splash pad, along with interactive water features, large swaths of shade and an assortment of lounge chairs and tables. Nearby was the recreation center building, rehabilitated and re-opened last year.

“This is what it’s all about,” said Westside Councilman John T. Bullock, as the laughter of children grew louder from the pool behind the podium. “It’s about our future, our future generations enjoying this space.”

When it opened in the 1970s, the recreation center and pool at 1051 West Saratoga Street was a popular community gathering place, drawing young and old from multiple nearby neighborhoods.

But it was located in the heart of the failed city-backed Poppleton redevelopment that displaced hundreds of residents on the city’s southwest side. And as Poppleton was hollowed out, the rec center and the pool went downhill, too.

Before the Greater Model Pool was officially closed in 2019, it was already at its last gasp.

“For a couple of years toward the end they would put water in it, but they wouldn’t actually open it,” according to longtime resident Sonia Eaddy. “They’d tell us they didn’t have a lifeguard for it, they didn’t have this or that.”

Yesterday it was a bright spot in an otherwise rough landscape, where weedy lots and boarded-up vacants still outnumber the tidy homes of longtime residents who have refused to leave.

Eaddy, who is president of Poppleton Now Community Association, said she was glad to see the pool open after years when it sat fenced off and dilapidated.

“We knew that there were things that were absent from our neighborhood that we needed to change,” she said. “So this group of neighbors in Poppleton came together and we fought for this.”

Alluding lightly to the conflicts of the past (“this has been an ask that we’ve continually been denied because of funding”), Eaddy went on to say, “I’m grateful for this” and expressed hope that the facility would be able to unite the community.

The re-opened pool will “help our young people” and “restore the hope and belief in themselves, that someone cares for them, and that they are loved and deserve a better childhood, better housing and better neighborhood,” Eaddy said during her speech.

Eaddy said the completed community space offers the neighborhood an area for “unity, relationships and friendship,” just as it had decades prior.

“We look forward to seeing one another again,” Eaddy said during her speech, urging senior citizens to also “come on out of your isolated places” and enjoy the pool.

“Poppleton, let’s keep popping!”

Displacement and Disinvestment

Eaddy, who fought a successful legal battle against the city and the developer to keep her home, told The Brew before the event that she struggled with what to include in her public remarks.

Community members were left in the dark about the pool’s design, she said, and were disappointed that the main lap pool is only six feet deep and not deeper to accommodate swim teams and teens who need the extra depth in order to dive.

“I’m just fearful that it’s not going to work as it was intended,” she said.

City officials have not yet responded to a request for comment on her remarks.

Her allegation is the accumulation of years of frustration and conflict over a project that began five mayors ago.

More than 500 homes in one of Baltimore’s oldest Black communities were targeted for acquisition through eminent domain as a result of the city’s 2006 agreement giving La Cité exclusive rights over 13 acres.

Blessed with HUD construction loans and city tax increment (TIF) financing, the New York-based company promised 1,800 units of affordable and upscale housing, a hotel, retail and more. To date, it has delivered a single 262-unit apartment complex.

The dispute culminated in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore by Eaddy and other Poppleton community members against Scott and other former city officials and the developer, La Cité. It was dismissed in 2025 and subsequently appealed.

Last month the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals sent the complaint back to the lower court, saying the community’s case should be dismissed, but on different grounds.

Some Previous Brew Coverage:

• Ground down and depopulated, Poppleton makes a last stand (7/8/21)

• Victory for Poppleton: The Eaddys can stay, the Sarah Ann houses will be saved and rehabbed (7/18/22)

• Ravaged by redevelopment, a West Baltimore neighborhood fights back with a HUD complaint (2/23/23)

• Its fate long determined by a developer and City Hall, Poppleton floats its own plans (4/25/23)

• After 19 years of minimal progress, Poppleton developer’s agreement is terminated by the city 6/3/24

• Developer hollowed out Poppleton for private gain, residents’ lawyers tell a federal judge (4/10/25)