06/22/2022
A number of WhyteStone Creative Outcrop” and “Black Rock/East” artists have been injured directly by the actions of this individual.
Owner Spotlight: Charles Lankford
(Note: These “spotlights” are written collectively by a group of tenants who directly experienced these things)
Charles Lankford lives in the Florida Keys and rarely comes to Baltimore. When he does, he refuses to sleep in his own building, instead choosing to sleep in his quarter-of-a-million-dollar camper while it blocks residents from half the parking lot.
He bought the building for around $250,000 in the 80s, and has put minimal effort or money into maintaining it since. The majority of improvements made on the building have been made by tenants-every time someone installs a bathtub or better kitchen, he kicks them out and re-rents the apartment for more. 
He’s the kind of guy that would prefer to spend more money bandaging a problem than to just do it right, despite personally being a multimillionaire. (That’s right, Brice and Jess’s dad is a millionaire, don’t let them tell you they grew up “middle class”) He voted for Trump and will go out of his way to try and convince you why you should have voted for Trump too.
Instead of replacing a badly leaking roof, he sends random maintenance guys up there with a bucket of tar to patch a problem, and instead of hiring an elevator repair guy, he has someone fix the door with a roll of steel wire and some tape. Then he acts surprised when two weeks later, people still have water pouring through the ceiling and the elevator is shorting out because the door won’t close properly. He will blame overworked maintenance people forever when he knows damn well his refusal to properly address issues is why the building is falling apart.
Literally his only contribution to the existence of the CopyCat is buying it in the 80s and then charging us rent while we made it the phenomenon it is. When he’s finally run us all out, all he will have is a warehouse building full of lead and asbestos.
During the pandemic there were lots of claims he needed us to pay him rent or else they couldn’t afford operating costs, but he got a PPP loan and his original mortgage was paid off decades ago. He paused all maintenance on the building during the pandemic and we know he cut pay for at least one of the maintenance guys, so what operating costs did he have exactly? Especially ones that he couldn’t pay as a guy who’s been making millions off of this building and other businesses for years. A guy who owns a Tesla can afford to fix an elevator and pay his maintenance crew, even with lost profit from a global economic collapse. 
For a couple years now, even before the pandemic, he has been under the impression that if he paints the inside of the building white and breaks it up into a bunch of studio apartments, he can charge “people from DC” $1200+ for a studio and maximize profits. (Mind you, many of these studios have shared bathrooms, with one shower for a whole floor, and you’re not allowed to have a stove in your apartment). He apparently thinks people from Washington DC are stupid?
He doesn’t care that the arts community has been making him money and improving his building for literally decades, we were a stopgap measure to make some profit while he waited for the neighborhood to gentrify, and he can’t wait to displace more people. He thinks if he can kick us all out, he can just lie to new people from outside the city and tell them the lead and asbestos have been taken care of. Don’t let him do it.
He claims to be a “patron of the arts” but let’s call him what he really is-A slumlord who believes the DIY scene exists for him to exploit and take advantage of. He doesn’t see a community full of creativity and passion, he sees people who will put up with a lot because they are trying to build dreams, and he wants to push them to the very limits of what they can handle so he can make a buck.
