Community economic development is a slow, often arduous, but always fulfilling, process.

In the summer of 2019, Waverly Main Street applied for a Spruce Up Grant from Central Baltimore Partnership (CBP). The Spruce Up Program was created by CBP and is funded by the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD).

The grant request from WMS asked for $26,000 to install a mural on all three sides of the building located at 3011 Greenmount Avenue, which rests at the intersection of Greenmount Avenue and Old York Road. The mural was to serve as a beautiful and inescapable entranceway into Waverly.

Gaia, a world renowned and highly sought after street artist, was engaged to create, and install the mural. Gaia (born Andrew Pisacane) has installed murals around the globe. His work can be found on every continent excluding Antarctica (some day!), and throughout Baltimore, including a recent collaboration installed at Camden Yards.

Ultimately CBP awarded $10,000 toward the $26,000 total. To fill the financial gap, property owner and community developer Greenmount Partners provided the additional $16,000 in funding to ensure the mural would see the light of day. With the funding secured, we got to work.

Over the last year, WMS, in partnership with Greenmount Partners and street artist Gaia, has been hard at work moving the project forward. Community listening sessions were held, a design concept was created and approved (and changed and reapproved), permits were acquired, t’s were crossed, i’s were dotted,  and slowly but surely, the project gained momentum.

Even as these necessary logistical steps were underway, Gaia was hard at work, traveling to other states and countries to install murals, while continuing to coordinate with WMS and Greenmount Partners on our project here at home. It has been a wild ride.

Winter arrived, postponing the installation until spring of 2020; COVID arrived, postponing the installation until summer 2020; Gaia injured his hand, postponing the project until fall of 2020 when he would return from completing yet another commissioned mural in Asheville, North Carolina.

And then, at long last, On October 1, 2020, paint hit the wall at 3011 Greenmount Avenue. It was absolutely worth the wait.

The mural install will take 2-4 weeks to complete, but you can already see it coming to life: full of flowers, faces, and history. It’s a breathtaking transformation of a once unremarkable facade, into a work of art that is emblematic of the Waverly renaissance.

Stop by 3011 Greenmount Avenue. Say hello to Gaia. See the artistic process in practice. Snap some photos and share them on social media or keep them for your own files. This is more than a mural installation, more than a visual representation of the narrative and diversity of Waverly —  this is history in the making.