Mere steps from Baltimore's City Hall sits historic Zion Church of the City of Baltimore, a 270-year-old congregation that has ministered continuously through five wars, multiple pandemics, and the Great Fire of 1904. None of these had as profound an impact on the congregation as the disruptions of urban renewal and highway construction in the 1960s and 70s. During those decades, the surrounding neighborhood was transformed from a bustling, mixed-use community into a single-use business district cut off from the surrounding neighborhoods by a network of highways, factories, and a prison. On the eve of the church's 270th anniversary celebration, local firm Jonathan Ceci Landscape Architects (JCLA) joined a team of design and preservation experts to facilitate a workshop with the congregation to imagine the next chapter of this cherished landmark.

 
The visioning process began with a design charette and culminated in a public presentation through an initiative organized by Partners for Sacred Places, a nonprofit that pairs faith-based groups with professional consultants to ensure the sustainable preservation of historic properties by envisioning new ways for them to engage their surrounding communities while honoring their religious missions.

At Zion, the design team studied the historic structure and its grounds to understand the needs and opportunities of this Lutheran church and regional hub of German culture. Conversations with church leadership revealed the importance of its bilingual weekly services and children's German language classes as well as annual celebrations like Brats & Beer, which transforms Zion's courtyard garden into a lively cultural exchange.

Through trace sketches at the charette, the designers explored how to more efficiently accommodate these uses - and new ones that might allow for enhanced revenue streams. Looking past Zion's gate to City Hall, the working group proposed a bold concept: a street-facing cafe and rentable workspaces. While architects from Ziger|Snead went about untangling the web of small rooms in the interior, the JCLA team thought about how to maximize Zion's role as a rare oasis of green in the city's civic core. The grounds - clearly well loved, though ready for a refresh - offered much to inspire: Arts & Crafts-era tiles from Moravian Tile Works, a magnolia tree canopy, and the assemblage of statues-even a barbecue grill.

In hand-sketched plans, the JCLA team knitted these details together with formal landscape typologies: the Walled Garden, the Forecourt, the Memorial Garden, the Picnic Grove. Each design feature works to enhance the visitor experience of the spaces, whether by framing the church's entrance with shrub plantings and carpets of lawn, developing a palette of shade plants worthy of a memorial site, or by reenvisioning a concrete alley as a backdrop for community gatherings around the table.

The design concepts were exhibited at the Congregation's 270th anniversary celebration and will be used to help with fundraising and to generate partnerships with neighbors as part of a broader push to reinvigorate this historic part of Baltimore City.

As seen in LASN magazine, October 2026.