We blend the significance of the past with the needs and desires of current residents.

In the past thirty-seven years, McCormack Baron Salazar has closed one hundred thirty-eight (138) projects with development costs in excess of $2.1 billion It has developed 15,350 housing units and one million square feet of retail/commercial space. After an earthquake severely damaged housing in sections of southern California in the mid-1990s, McCormack Baron Salazar began its west coast operations opening an office in Los Angeles, which has been responsible for 2,433 units with development costs in excess of $390 million.

McCormack Baron Salazar’s role as a pioneer in community development and urban renewal can be traced to 1963, when idealistic Oberlin College student named Richard Baron volunteered at a Freedom School established by social activists and residents of Cleveland’s Hough neighborhood – a desperately poor, segregated community ignored for decades and torn apart during the inner-city riots of the 1960s. Mr. Baron’s experience working with children in Hough opened his eyes to the needs, hopes and potential of low-income urban communities.

After graduating from law school, Mr. Baron became a legal aid lawyer representing public housing tenants in St. Louis. There he saw first-hand huge disparities in housing quality and opportunity available to poor families. Baron helped create a more responsive public housing bureaucracy and persuaded the agency to give tenants a role in managing public housing developments. During this time he forged a relationship with labor leader and homebuilder Terry McCormack and in 1973 the two formed McCormack Baron & Associates (now McCormack Baron Salazar). Their vision, to rebuild low-income communities by providing quality housing options for all people, is the core principle of the company’s mission today.

Throughout our time, the firm’s emphasis has evolved. Early projects focused on small, single sites with mixed-income rental housing. Washington Apartments in St. Louis is an example of the firm’s early project type, that has since been renovated again to meet current standards. Aiming for greater impact on disadvantaged neighborhoods, McCormack Baron began to develop multi-block areas, with a mixture of rental and single-family housing. The firm’s earliest mixed-finance developments – combining affordable and public housing with market-rate units – began to demonstrate that with the re-emergence of a healthy housing market, entire communities experienced positive growth and new investment. Westminster Place in St. Louis, Quality Hill in Kansas City and Lexington Village in Cleveland are outstanding examples of this approach.

This experience led to the creation of a “mixed-finance, mixed-income” approach to revitalization, and to the formation of the “HOPE VI” model.  Centennial Place in Atlanta was the first HOPE VI pilot project, with Murphy Park in St. Louis demonstrating the non-HOPE VI mixed-finance approach.  In expanding its vision and scope, McCormack Baron Salazar (MBS)has created long-term partnerships with housing authorities, local governments, key institutions, and employers. MBS now includes neighborhood schools, early childhood education, youth activities, resident job training and self-sufficiency, economic development, access to quality health services, and environmental stewardship and energy efficiency as core activities in comprehensive neighborhood revitalization.

MBS acts as program manager, overseeing the development and implementation of comprehensive master plans for large, residential and commercial development districts. The goal: create lasting impact throughout a large swath of the inner city and link neighborhoods to the downtown core and major employment areas. Renaissance Place in St. Louis (a LEED-ND Certified Project), Heritage Park in Minneapolis, and University Place / Legends Park in Memphis are examples of our most recent work in program management.

MBS is poised to help cities meet 21st century challenges head on. We bring a comprehensive and workable approach to a complex development environment and our successes demonstrate our ability to deliver on the goals set for us by our clients: the cities, residents, authorities, institutions, and businesses of Urban America.