Funds from the bonds, which were underwritten by Prager, Sealy & Co. LLC, will be directed toward infrastructural upgrades and reserve accounts and capitalized interest and issuance costs. Baltimore's City Council designated the area in which the 17-acre property sits a Tax Increment Financing District, paving the way for the bonds issuance.

Developers of the Clipper Mill project aim to reinvent the former Poole & Hunt machine manufacturing property as a "live and work" destination. Upon its scheduled 2006 completion, the development will include 90,800 sf of office and artist studio space--already under construction--122-rental apartments in the Mill Race Apartments building and the Assembly Building, 74-single-family homes and 27 townhouse condominiums. Cho Benn Holback & Associates is the architect of record on the project.

Located just off I-83 in the Woodberry area of the Jones Falls Valley, the site is still home to some of the mid-19th Century buildings that originally adorned the property. "With the use of TIF bonds, a site that has been blighted for many years will be reborn as a community with a distinctive combination of historic buildings and new construction," Baltimore Development Corp. president MJ Brodie says. "Clipper Mill will be yet another example of a successful adaptive reuse project in Baltimore City."