Center for
Neighborhood Innovation

About the CNI

The Center for Neighborhood Innovation (CNI) is a collaborative workspace for mission-driven organizations. Our facilities, which include traditional coworking, offer a uniquely-tailored environment where our innovators can collaborate with one another and community stakeholders. Strategic partnerships, interdisciplinary conversations, and in-house university networks broaden their reach and impact.

The advantage of a large, shared space is that we can gather a diverse community – non-profit and for-profit organizations, educational institutions and design firms, serving scientists and construction apprentices alike. Organizational diversity places the ideas, capital, strategic partners, the technicians needed to solve local/global challenges in one space.

About Hoen

Hoen & Company, established in Baltimore in 1835, was the oldest continuously operating lithographer in the United States. The Hoen & Co. campus, constructed from 1885 to 1963, is the only site that survives to represent the company’s long and illustrious history. The earliest buildings in the campus were constructed for the Baxter Electric Company, and later the Bagby Furniture Company before Hoen & Co. occupied the property from 1902 to 1981, when the firm declared bankruptcy.  

At Hoen & Co, Ernest Weber and his cousin August Hoen introduced the German Senefelder lithographic process to Baltimore. This process allowed artists to draw directly on lithographic stone from which prints could be made, eliminating the need for time-consuming engraving. Hoen & Co. specialized in high-quality, sophisticated work that elevated the technique and art of lithographic printing. August Hoen patented the lithocaustic process resolving images into light and dark squares—the forerunner to half-tone printing. Hoen also developed topographical color patterning and map conventions still used by the U.S. Geological Survey. The significance of the company’s work in an age in which printing was the medium for disseminating visual images that conveyed scientific knowledge cannot be overstated.

Today the 85,000 SF historic Hoen & Co has been re-purposed as a lively mixed-use campus housing non-profits, social enterprises, and researchers. The campus is marked by 3 historic structures (65,000 SF) and two warehouse/storage buildings (20,000 SF). The historic buildings feature open floor plans, exposing the unique architectural aesthetics of the historic structures. An internal courtyard, surrounded on three sides by beautiful historic facades, serves as a community events space and outdoor seating.