Transformation
The Vision
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Cross Street Partners is re-purposing the historic Phillips Packing Company, Factory F (The Packing House) in Cambridge, MD. Building on the Eastern Shore’s deep tradition of agricultural and fishing assets, the 60,000 square foot historic Phillips Packing House Building is designed to support and grow regional economic opportunities connected to agriculture, aquaculture, environmental technologies, and tourism. The Packing House houses a synergistic mix of tech and creative entrepreneurs, food production and food related retail/eateries as well as a 2-story, light-filled open atrium space for continuous public programs and private events.
The building features an open floor plan, soaring ceilings, and the opportunity to retain many historic architectural features that enhances the space with an authentic, Eastern Shore manufacturing aesthetic. Adjacent to the Phillips Building is the future site of Cannery Park, a new ‘central park’ for the City of Cambridge that incorporates active and passive spaces for recreation. The Packing House serves as a connection between the growing downtown revitalization in Cambridge and the nearby highway route taking people to the Maryland and Virginia beaches. The commercialization, research, production, and active retail uses support local employment and inform nutrition and public health programming on the Eastern Shore.
Redeveloping this historically significant building as an entrepreneurial engine for the Cambridge community in a manner that celebrates Cambridge’s unique heritage preserves the legacy of the Phillips Packing Company. It is the last remaining factory from the Phillips Company’s empire of vegetable and food packing businesses, which once employed thousands of people in Cambridge. The company closed in the 1960’s, and the building has been deteriorating for decades.
Celebration
Community
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Tapping into the community's inherent strengths, the Packing House will create career-track jobs, extend educational opportunities, encourage social connection, and project a spirit of celebration.
What's more, the Packing House is the first step of a broader neighborhood revitalization effort to restore food access, housing, and employment opportunities to Cambridge and the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The Project is located in a targeted revitalization area preliminary called the Packing District. Adjacent to the building is a 6.6-acre property that will become Cannery Park - an ESLC-supported project that will yield a new central park, the restoration of the Cambridge Creek headwaters, and a trail head for a new rails-to-trails system.
Cannery Park site map and rendering
Check out Cannery Park in the news.
The Packing House/Cross Street Partners float entry in the 2022 Cambridge-Dorchester County Parade
The Packing House - Ribbon Cutting celebration
Mike Elzey’s guitar studio student showcase - in the Atrium
Events at the Packing House
Learn More About the Area
Be the first to know about the next big Packing House Party! Fill out the form below for event updates and visit our Facebook Page.
ReStoration
The Building
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The Phillips Packing Company, Factory F is a 60,000 square foot formerly vacant warehouse building in an industrial section of Cambridge, MD.
The building has been vacant for decades, but still retains many features of its 19th century design. Historic masonry, large warehouse style windows, and industrial doors are some of the details that remain for reuse.
legacy
History
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Originally built in 1920 for the Cambridge Furniture Company, The Packing House stands as the last remaining factory from the Phillips Packing Company’s empire of vegetable and food packing businesses.
The Phillips Packing Company employed thousands of people in Cambridge and was responsible for supplying K and C rations to US troops during World War II. The company closed in the 1960’s, and the building has been deteriorating since.
Redeveloping this historically significant building in a manner that celebrates it distinctive heritage will honor and preserve the legacy of the Phillips Packing Company in Cambridge.
Meet our tenants
MERGE - creative spaces - transformative environment
MERGE is a dynamic and inspiring hub that brings together a diverse community to foster creativity, growth, and entrepreneurship. MERGE memberships provides flexible workspaces, conference rooms and unique common areas to stimulate collaborative conversations with like-minded entrepreneurs. Located in the newly restored Phillips Packing House, MERGE provides its members the opportunity to transform their ideas into successful companies.
To take a tour and learn more about becoming a MERGE member, visit our MERGE site here, or reach out to our leasing team at thepackinghouse@crossstpartners.com
MERGE tenants include:
Blacks of the Chesapeake, a foundation that documents and educates the public about the history and culture of African Americans who have worked in the maritime and seafood industries in the Chesapeake Bay region
Moving Dorchester Forward, a collective impact organization committed to transforming Dorchester County into a thriving community for all through economic development, education, and community engagement
Eastern Shore Crisis Response Services, an Affiliated Sante Group, which has a mobile crisis team to help with mental health or substance use crises
First Class Video and Electronics, Locally owned and operated, First Class Video and Electronics is a Veteran owned small business leading in cellphone and computer service in the community for over 10 years. Even though our tenure is relatively short, over those past 10 years we've built a strong and trusted reputation with our customers allowing us to be a cornerstone in the community for Cellphone and Computer Services.
Blue Oyster brings a revolutionary, 21st-century approach to scaling the Chesapeake’s oyster aquaculture industry, enlisting the vast watershed’s communities and businesses to help improve the environment and storied culture of the country’s largest estuary. Blue Oyster aima to involve all of the Chesapeake Bay watershed’s businesses, municipalities, and stakeholders in revitalization of this crucial ecosystem and the culture that surrounds it. As the oyster industry thrives again, so, too, will the working waterfront communities that have made up the heart and soul of the Bay’s culture for decades.
Four eleven kitchen
The Four Eleven Kitchen is a shared-use commercial kitchen designed to empower, elevate and establish a thriving food entrepreneur community in Cambridge, Maryland and the greater Mid-shore Region. Powered by Beat The Rush Delivery (BTR), Four Eleven Kitchen will develop and cultivate a sustainable food economy within the local marketplace. It is our mission to increase access to consistent and healthy food resources.
The Cambridge community has endured many transitions in the food marketplace. It is our vision to support the local food economy by providing a commercial kitchen space that not only welcomes diverse food concepts and entrepreneurs but also provides an easy to work in environment, along with consistent and direct access to fresh local food for the community.
Are you a future or existing FOODPRENUER in need of a shared use kitchen - learn more here!
Blue Oyster environmental
Blue Oyster brings a revolutionary, 21st-century approach to scaling the Chesapeake’s oyster aquaculture industry, enlisting the vast watershed’s communities and businesses to help improve the environment and storied culture of the country’s largest estuary.
The oyster industry is responding in powerful ways through oyster aquaculture. Oysters are incredibly helpful to the health of the Bay — and remarkably efficient and effective at filtering water. Each oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water per day, consuming phytoplankton, and removing nitrogen and phosphorous (nutrients) from the water. Nitrogen and phosphorus are assimilated in the meat and shell of the oyster by consuming phytoplankton and particulate organic matter. Once oysters are harvested, the nutrients are permanently removed from the water. And a time when food production is straining our environment in so many ways, oyster aquaculture creates a sustainable and environmentally beneficial pathway of creating protein for consumption.
The trend is positive: The rate of oyster farming in Maryland’s section of the Chesapeake Bay has grown 20 times over since 2012, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.
MARYLAND department of housing and
community development
The Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development is proud to be at the forefront in implementing housing policy that promotes and preserves home ownership and creating innovative community development initiatives to meet the challenges of a growing Maryland.
Through the Maryland Mortgage Program, the department has empowered thousands of Maryland families to realize the American dream of home ownership.
The department’s rental housing programs increase and preserve the supply of affordable housing and provide good choices for working families, senior citizens, and individuals with special needs.
Community development and revitalization programs like Neighborhood BusinessWorks, Community Legacy, and Main Street Maryland help our cities and towns remain rich, vibrant communities.
The Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development remains committed to building on our past successes to maintain our reputation as an innovator in community revitalization and a national leader in housing finance.
DEVELOPMENT TEAM
Cross Street Partners
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Cross Street Partners is a vertically integrated real estate company exclusively focused on re-building communities by creating vibrant, urban mixed-use neighborhoods built on a foundation of innovation and entrepreneurial activity. Cross Street believes in developing neighborhoods, not just buildings. Cross Street Partners specializes in adaptive reuse of historic properties, brownfield remediation, sustainable design and building practices, and transit-oriented development.
The Cross Street team has decades of knowledge and experience in Real Estate Development, Construction, Property Management, Leasing and Financial Advisory Services. Cross Street Partners was started in 2010 to re-formulate Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse which began in 1974 and grew to be one of the largest developers in the country focusing on historic preservation and urban revitalization with over 17 million square feet of completed developments.
Contact
GET IN TOUCH
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411A Dorchester Avenue
Cambridge, MD 21613
Looking for space in the heart of Cambridge? Or perhaps you’d like to hold your next event in our amazing Atrium space.
Fill out the form and a member of our team will be in touch.