City College high school students and teachers are getting a change of scenery that takes them from a mostly isolated campus along The Alameda into the center of Baltimore.

Ariana Calderon, a senior, said she is getting used to crossing busy intersections and seeing city life. She said she loves hanging out with friends at Starbucks and a convenience store on Charles Street after school lets out.

“It’s been refreshing to be able to go outside and explore,” she said.

For three years starting last month, City College is at the University of Baltimore’s academic and business centers in Mount Vernon. The relocation of about 1,400 students comes as the 1928 City College building — known as the “castle on the hill” — undergoes extensive renovations.

Some City College high schoolers are eager to get a sense of student life on an urban campus, almost as a practice for college, and local business owners are excited to serve new customers.

But there’s a catch: Less than two weeks into the school year, City College leaders reminded parents that they are enforcing a Baltimore City Schools policy that students can’t leave campus while school is in session.

In compliance with that policy, “local restaurants surrounding the UBalt campus are no longer permitted to serve food during the school hours” to students between 7:30 a.m. and 2 p.m, according to an email City College parents received Thursday night.

City College Principal Cindy Harcum told The Banner that the University of Baltimore and Mount Vernon have been welcoming.

“We plan to continue to iron out the challenges as they come; before, during, or after school,” she wrote in an email.

Eateries along Mount Royal Avenue and Charles Street saw a burst of business in the first two weeks of school, with some reporting a typical day’s worth of customers in just the span of the lunch hour. Others described a 40% increase in business.

“The kids coming back to school, it’s a blessing,” said Florinda Rojas, who recently purchased Grille Twelve 24. The Charles Street restaurant saw groups of students fill its booths and high-top tables at lunchtime in those first days of school.

A day after the reminder to parents, the restaurant was “pretty much dead silent,” said Rojas’ grandson, Xzavier Concoba, who works there.

The customer boost had come at a crucial time for local businesses against the backdrop of declining enrollment at the University of Baltimore, which caters to an adult working population. The area has also struggled since the COVID-19 pandemic and remote-work policies thinned the number of office workers.

Alekhou Tiyeb, an employee at the University Market & Deli on Charles Street, said the principal came to the convenience store Friday morning to notify them that high school students were not to be served during school hours.

The store’s owner, Adam Hamideh, said long lines of students would form around lunchtime, with kids grabbing snacks, sodas, and deli fare.

“It’s stressful with so many people in such a short time,” he said before the crackdown. “But we really appreciate the students, and we try to serve them as best we can before they need to return to class.”

Having owned the store for 10 years, Hamideh said the lunchtime rush was adding almost $300 to his daily revenue.

At the Starbucks across the street, barista Kat Upton pulled up the cashier’s report from the first week of school.

At the morning peak time, the cafe had up to 40 orders placed in the span of 30 minutes, a big uptick in business at that location.

What are high schoolers ordering? Cake pops, blended drinks and Frappuccinos, Upton said.

Not all students have the time before 7:30 a.m, or after 2:30 p.m., to take advantage of the new city campus and its proximity to local businesses.

City College sophomore Kevin Melton’s commute to the University of Baltimore campus is more than an hour longer than his trip to the regular campus was. With uncertainty surrounding the arrival and departure of public buses, Melton said, he needs to head right to the bus stop after class and wait there, sometimes for over 45 minutes, for his ride home.

The morning commute to school is tough, too, Melton said, because arrival after 7:30 a.m. means a tardy mark. Melton said he and several friends wake up as early as 4:30 a.m. to try to make it on time.

The University of Baltimore campus made changes to accommodate the visiting high schoolers.

The office of university President Kurt Schmoke — a City College graduate himself — was one of many rooms converted into a high school classroom, he said. Walls inside the academic center were taken down by the city public school system’s engineers to create a lunch room, Schmoke said.

City College footed the bill for the adjustments to the college campus, but Schmoke said the university is not charging rent for their use of the space.

At peak times, including drop-off, lunch and pick-up, City College staff, volunteers and officers take up stations at the busiest intersection, Mount Royal Avenue and Charles Street, to keep students safe.

Calderon, the senior, said she didn’t have to contend with issues like crossing busy streets during her previous three years. But she said it’s good practice for what life might be like next year as a freshman at University of Maryland, College Park or at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, where she has applied.

In anticipation of a busier lunchtime, the Rice & Noodles restaurant on Charles Street relocated an employee from another location and planned to roll out a new lunch menu and online ordering system to cater to the haste and preferences of young adults, from slow-brewed pho to grab-and-go lunch boxes.

Restaurant manager Amy Nguyen said she wasn’t aware of the crackdown on kids leaving campus. But after a Monday afternoon without the high schoolers, “we’re rethinking the changes if the students won’t be coming.”

Back at City College’s temporarily vacant campus in the Coldstream-Homestead-Montebello neighborhood, the Dunkin’ Donuts that’s an eight-minute walk away is quiet, said store manager Teresa Ruiz.

The location, she said, is losing about $2,000 daily in business from parents and students without City College in session there.

“For the business it is sad,” Ruiz said. “But it’s less stressful for the employees.”