All three major tenants at the long-abandoned hospital complex in Crownsville have a new landlord: Anne Arundel County.

The Anne Arundel County Food Bank, which operates a roughly 32,000-square-foot warehouse and provides meals to those who are food insecure, had its state lease assumed by the county, as did Hope House Treatment Center. The County Council unanimously approved Monday a new lease for Gaudenzia Addiction Treatment and Recovery Services, securing the final deal for the three principal tenants at the now county-owned site.

The Crownsville property was transferred from the state to the county last year, the first step in a major initiative by Democratic County Executive Steuart Pittman to transform the 500-acre, 76-building, lead- and asbestos-covered property with a troubled legacy into a state-of-the-art mental health and nonprofit hub.

Gaudenzia has been at the Crownsville site since 2016 and has 175 residential beds, said Ethan Hunt, government relations officer for Pittman. It had a previous lease with the state for two 10-year installments for $1 a year, with the caveat that the tenant was responsible for utilities, maintenance and repairs. Since moving in, Gaudenzia has spent around $2.6 million on renovations, Hunt added.

Though the terms of its new lease with the county will include the same costs and requirements for the tenant, this lease is for 35 years with two 30-year renewal options.

“We had been advocating for several years to get a longer lease, but because of the unknown outcome with the hospital grounds — it wasn’t possible,” Kristy Blalock, executive director for Gaudenzia’s Maryland operations, said in an email. “We were beyond happy to be offered a 35-year lease because leases longer than 30 years open up funding opportunities for renovations.”

Gaudenzia’s lease approval comes less than a month after a newly formed Crownsville Advisory Committee had its first meeting in September.

The 14-member committee is chaired by Chris Trumbauer, the county’s budget officer and a former council member who represented the district that includes Crownsville. The other members include local leaders and county executive staff members.

“The design is to make recommendations to the county executive and the County Council,” Trumbauer said. “I’d like to see us give direction as we look toward the master plan that’s about to get underway and I’m looking forward to that, giving a series of options for different visions, and then we can look at the pros and cons of each of those.”

The future of the Crownsville property has been debated for years. The complex, formerly known as the Maryland Hospital for the Negro Insane, operated from 1911 to 2004 and had a long history of performing medical experiments on Black, mentally ill Marylanders and forcing them to do manual labor, according to historians. There are approximately 1,700 people buried on the property.

Renovating the property in a historically sensitive way has been a key component of Pittman’s second term. He had his December 2022 inauguration at the site and has dedicated a building that the county owned previously as a nonprofit community center.

The committee has established four subcommittees.

The Cultural History subcommittee will be chaired by Jacqueline Boone Allsup, former president of the Anne Arundel County branch of the NAACP. It will offer guidance on how to honor the property’s history. Pamela Brown, executive director of Anne Arundel County’s Partnership for Children, Youth, and Families, will chair the Health and Wellness subcommittee, focused on health and wellness offerings the county plans to provide at the site.

The Infrastructure subcommittee chaired by Allison Taylor, director of government relations at Kaiser Permanente, will provide guidance on building and property rehabilitation.

Meanwhile, Scott Hymes, president of Crownsville Conservancy, will chair the Recreation and Parks subcommittee, which will look at improvements to recreational space on the property.

Some cultural and historical work is already being carried out by local historian and Capital columnist Janice Hayes-Williams, who specializes in Black history. She’s hosted research seminars to teach residents how to trace their lineage and is working with the county’s Department of Recreation and Parks to collect oral histories about the property.

Before any concrete changes can be made to the property, the buildings and land must undergo extensive remediation. The state designated $30 million for that purpose during the 2022 legislative session, though county officials say it will take much more than that to clean up the property.