Baltimore & Ohio Warehouse at Camden Yards

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The iconic Baltimore & Ohio Warehouse at Camden Yards is an icon of Baltimore's industrial heritage and a unique example of creativity in historic preservation and adaptive reuse. Construction on the warehouse started in 1899. Architect E. Francis Baldwin likely served as the architect having designed warehouses for the B&O at Locust Point in 1879-80 and at Henderson's Wharf in Fell's Point in 1898. When a five-story addition was completed next to Camden Station in 1905, the narrow fifty-one-foot wide warehouse squeezed into the busy railyard by stretching four full blocks along South Eutaw Street. The company boasted that the facility could hold one thousand carloads of freight at once.

The warehouse remained in use through the 1960s but was largely abandoned by the 1970s, in favor of new single-story facilities. By the 1980s, the structure was threatened with demolition to make way for a new stadium. Baltimore Heritage and Maryland State Senator Jack Lapides led an effort to fight for the preservation of the warehouse and the rehabilitation of Camden Station. Leadership from the Maryland Stadium Authority responded and, with support from the Baltimore Orioles, architects Helmuth, Obata & Kassabaum and RTKL Associates transformed the vacant warehouse into the star attraction of the new stadium complex.

Oriole Park at Camden Yards opened on April 6, 1992 and the ballpark has remained a much-loved landmark ever since. The warehouse is now home to team offices and a private club for the Orioles. In 1993, the building even caught a long ball—a 445-foot shot by Ken Griffey, Jr. on July 12, 1993 during the 1993 All Star Game Home Run Derby—marked with a small bronze plaque matched by those on Eutaw Street for the occasions when a player has hit a ball out of the park.