When dirt bike riders fix their bikes, that’s practicing mechanics, said Brittany Young, founder and CEO of local nonprofit B-360.

Her nonprofit uses dirt bike culture to empower Baltimore youths and get them interested in STEM education.

On Tuesday evening, B-360 will hold a ribbon-cutting event for its first brick-and-mortar location at Harborplace in downtown Baltimore. The space will be a youth and teen center where young people can learn transferable skills and get classroom and tutoring support, Young said. The center and all of its programming, she said, are completely free.

And no, there won’t be dirt bike riding at the Harborplace center, she said.

“Think again of young people having a space to belong downtown, but also support towards the academics, and then also learning a trade in that area,” Young said.

Young said learning about STEM — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — has to be culturally relevant, and using dirt bike culture as that pathway made the most sense to her. In 2017, she created B-360 to transform and realign dirt bike culture to “make sure it exists in Baltimore, and it can exist safely,” Young said.

People have ridden dirt bikes around Baltimore for decades, but they’re illegal on city streets — and have become a contentious topic. On one end of the spectrum, residents have raised concerns about safety and noise pollution. On the other, some have said the annual crackdown against dirt bikers unfairly targets African American youth.

The B-360 youth and teen center will join a handful of other temporary tenants in Harborplace as the waterfront complex preps for a $900 million facelift. The once-iconic pavilions will eventually be torn down to make way for development, but the timing is unclear.

Councilman James Torrence, who represents District 7, said he loves that B-360 is opening the center because it reminds people that Baltimore is trying to build a harbor that is open to everyone, while also serving as a resource hub where young people can have support and caring adults around them.

He added that the Harborplace location is important because it’s “an opportunity for young people to interact in a space that normally people would not say was welcoming to them,” and it puts it in a central spot with greater access to youths from across the city.

The ribbon-cutting for the youth and teen center is being held on B-360 Day, which Mayor Brandon Scott dedicated in 2022. The nonprofit is working toward building the nation’s first-ever dirt bike campus, Young said, and was awarded $3 million in federal investments in 2023.

After the ribbon cutting, Young said the day will focus on celebrating the new center, raising more funds for the campus and “making sure that B-360 can continue to sow seeds in young people.” In addition to STEM, B-360 also focuses on advocacy, workforce development and helping those who were involved with the criminal justice system.

Young hopes the youth and teen center can be a safe location for young people to become lifelong learners.

“They may have come for dirt bikes,“ she said, ”but the reason they’re going to stay is because they want to learn more about STEM and to keep growing their skills.”