Project Quick Facts
- Project:Greater Model Aquatic Center – Baltimore City Recreation & Parks
- Services: site clearing and grading, stormwater management, underground utilities, roadwork and paving
- Location: 1051 W Saratoga Street, Baltimore, MD 21223
- Timing: October 2024 to November 2025
- General Contractor: Plano Coudon Construction
- Project Manager: Burt Miller
The Greater Model pool in Baltimore’s Poppleton neighborhood had been closed for five years before the city committed $8 million to replace it. Comer Construction was brought on as the site development contractor under General Contractor Plano Coudon Construction with work getting underway in October 2024 to complete all earthwork, underground infrastructure, and site preparation needed to build the new facility.
The Greater Model Aquatic Center brings a six-lane lap pool, a family recreation pool with a beach-style entry, and a splash pad with eight interactive spray features — plus a new bathhouse, pool office, and pumphouse. For a neighborhood that went years without a functioning public pool, getting the site ready was the first real sign that something was finally coming.
Work got underway with clearing and grading to reshape the site for the new aquatic complex — pools, decking, parking, and all supporting infrastructure. The photos give a sense of how much ground was covered: both the Comer Hitachi and CAT excavators working different phases of the dig simultaneously across the site.
What the Work Looked Like
Every aquatic facility of this scale requires substantial site preparation before any pool structure can go in the ground. Comer Construction specializes in exactly this kind of foundational work: clearing and grading a site, managing the earthwork, and coordinating the underground infrastructure that everything else depends on. The photos here show that process across multiple phases of the project.
Grading and excavation is more than just moving dirt. It involves reshaping terrain to precise elevations, managing what comes off the site, and staging the right materials at the right time for the work that follows. Comer Construction runs its own fleet of excavators, loaders, and dump trucks, which means that coordination happens within one crew rather than across multiple subcontractors.
Underground Utilities & Stormwater Management
Underground utility and stormwater work is one of Comer Construction’s core capabilities, and it’s the part of a project that most people never think about once a facility is open. A site like this requires a properly engineered stormwater detention system to manage runoff and protect the surrounding neighborhood. Getting it right means excavating to the correct depth, installing liner and aggregate base, placing and connecting the detention pipes in sequence, setting the manhole and junction box structures, and backfilling carefully so nothing shifts.
The photos show several stages of that process. Large corrugated metal detention pipes are laid side by side in a lined excavation, with precast concrete manhole structures tying the network together. It’s detailed, below-grade work that requires experienced utility crews following engineered plans closely. Comer Construction installs complete underground utility systems and stormwater management infrastructure for projects of all sizes across the Greater Baltimore region.
About Comer Construction
Comer Construction is a women-owned, Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) and a leading Maryland-based site development contractor specializing in excavation, grading, underground utilities, stormwater management, and paving. Since 1982, we’ve delivered quality site construction for commercial, municipal, healthcare, education, and community development projects across the Greater Baltimore Region and Mid-Atlantic.
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