Second Chance has sold a portion of its sprawling South Baltimore property to a company behind the cleanup for last year’s train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.

Clean Harbors Inc., a waste management company, paid $15.5 million for about 6 acres of land and an about 110,000-square-foot light manufacturing building located at 1700 Ridgely St. The sale won’t affect operations for the seller Second Chance, a nonprofit retailer of salvaged architectural materials that offers job training for people who are reentering the workforce following incarceration.

Second Chance plans to use the sale to springboard the organization into expansion, said president and CEO Mark Foster in an email. The nonprofit is using some proceeds from the sale to make a local acquisition that will create 75 to 100 new jobs for people reentering the workforce. Foster said he expects to announce more details of the acquisition next month.

The property sale was a component of the Second Chance board’s long-term strategic plan to create more jobs “locally or, when appropriate, in other cities that share similar circumstances as Baltimore,” Foster said.

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Second Chance purchased about 17 acres and 300,000 square feet of building space in 2011. Since then, its warehouse has become well known in the region for its motley collection of architectural materials, home goods and displays. The organization’s website also touts a 97% graduation rate for its workforce development training program.

Clean Harbors was already leasing a portion of the land before opting to purchase it from Second Chance. Samuel, Son & Co., a steel distributor, will continue leasing about 60,000 square feet of building space that is being acquired by Clean Harbors. Second Chance’s footprint will remain the same, Foster said in the email.

A representative for Clean Harbors could not be reached for comment. Last year, Baltimore denied Clean Harbors permission to discharge water it had planned to treat at a facility in the city for toxic contaminants stemming from the Ohio train derailment.

Clean Harbors executive Donna Ayer told the Baltimore Business Journal earlier this month that the new property would not handle any hazardous material. The company plans to use the facility to manufacture containers and add retail waste shredding and electronic waste processing.

Lillian Reed

lillian.reed@thebaltimorebanner.com

Lillian Reed

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