A long-vacant former restaurant property between Baltimore’s Harbor East and Little Italy neighborhoods is headed to auction later this month.
The roughly 12,000-square-foot property at 1000 Eastern Ave., once home to Milan Restaurant, is scheduled for an on-site auction Aug. 20, according to Alex Cooper Auctioneers.
Prospective bidders are required to make a $50,000 deposit and must be pre-qualified by The Casey Group by Aug. 17, according to the auction listing.
The auction could mark a new chapter for a property that has sat vacant for more than a decade amid legal disputes and previous redevelopment proposals. Today, the fenced-off building remains shuttered behind a chained and padlocked gate, with trash scattered around its exterior. A red “Milan” sign still hangs on the property.
Milan closed in 2014 following years of controversy over its operation as a nightclub. The property’s zoning permitted restaurant use but not nightclub operations, and a court upheld restrictions on the business, The Baltimore Sun previously reported.
State records list Bethesda-based HSN LLC as the property owner.
In 2016, property owner Sean Shaprast proposed redeveloping the site with dozens of apartment units in a four- or six-story building, according to the Baltimore Business Journal. That project did not move forward.
Before Milan, the property housed Luigi Petti, an Italian restaurant that operated there from 1990 to 2006.
The latest auction listing identifies the site as the planned future home of a mixed-use redevelopment called “The Lofts.”
