Lidl is coming to East Baltimore. Inside the deal that almost didn’t happen.

In late 2021, Dana Henson made a panicked, late-night phone call to the CEO of the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, expecting to drop a major bombshell that would almost certainly spell disaster for both women.Henson, principal and vice president of The Henson Development Company Inc., told Janet Abrahams that their plan to bring a full-service grocery store to East Baltimore to serve as an anchor tenant for an ambitious development project and provide relief to an area long classified as a fresh food desert would not work.