Business & Tech

St. Agnes To Buy Cardinal Gibbons

Elkridge church has been holding Baltimore school's memorial statue since November.


Officials from St. Agnes Hospital announced plans to acquire the former Cardinal Gibbons High School.

Currently, the Archdiocese of Baltimore owns the 32-acre property in Baltimore.

Cardinal Gibbons operated from 1962 until 2010, when it was one of 13 schools closed by the archdiocese.

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Discussions with St. Agnes began in December 2011 after the archdiocese rejected several commercial proposals including development of an industrial park or strip mall, according to sources.

"The archdiocese determined that offers did not satisfy their desires to create an environment that is respectful and inclusive to the surrounding community," said William Greskovich, the hospital's vice president of operations and capital projects.

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The corner of Caton and Wilkens has special significance for the community, with generations of children attending Cardinal Gibbons while their parents worked at St. Agnes.

"They've always been joined at the hip," said Jay Dillow, who graduated from Cardinal Gibbons in 1986 and served as chair of the school's alumni association.

Many people in the community had held out hope that another school would be established at that location. Alumni expressed frustration over what they said was neglect of the school, which is boarded up and graffiti-riddled with crumbling masonry.

In particular, alums were concerned about the deterioration of The Grotto, an area with a statue of Mary that is a memorial to three students and a teacher killed in a plane crash in 1968.

"The Grotto has been in disrepair since the school closed," said Dillow.

The statue was moved to  in Elkridge in November 2011.

The plan with St. Agnes was disclosed to a group of Cardinal Gibbons alumni March 1. The purchase price was not disclosed and development plans remain sketchy.

"This is a first cut of the vision," Greskovich said.

Many members of the Cardinal Gibbons community harbored suspicions that St. Agnes has long coveted the property across Caton Avenue from the hospital.

However, as recently as 2010, when the school closed, St. Agnes officials expressed no interest in buying the property.

"A lot's changed," said Greskovich. "We finished our over $250 million renovation here, the economy changed, a lot of things changed in two and a half years. But what remained the same is our concern that the property be developed in a way that is respectful to the Catholic corner history."

The vision includes an office building and housing for St. Agnes employees and the community at large, said Greskovich.

"We're so excited about this opportunity to keep Caton corner a Catholic corner," said Cardinal Edward O'Brien, archbishop of Baltimore.

The property was originally home to St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys, an orphanage and boarding school run by the archdiocese from 1866 to 1950.

The most famous resident of St. Mary's was George Herman "Babe" Ruth, who as a child learned to play baseball on a field now known as Babe Ruth Field.

One part of the plan is to recreate home plate of the new baseball field as it was when Babe Ruth played at St. Mary's "so children will be able to step up to home plate and say that's where the Babe swung at a ball for the first time," said Greskovich.

The Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation, named for the former Orioles manager, will establish a youth development park on the baseball field.

"These fields will not only afford a place for young at-risk kids to play and learn the values the Ripkens learned from their dad, they will transform neighborhoods as well," said state Sen. Frank Kelly, chairman of the Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation.

"It's one of the most mixed emotions you can have," said Cardinal Gibbons' alum Dillow, whose great-grandfather played baseball with Ruth when they attended St. Mary's together more than a century ago. "They're doing the right thing, taking over this property."


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