Development : Development News

An $11 million apartment building will begin construction in the Station North Arts and Entertainment District this year, bringing more life to an area undergoing revitalization. 

The 74-unit Lillian Jones apartments will break ground at the end of the year and take about one year to complete, says Jim French, president of French Development Co. The Baltimore real estate firm, which specializes in nonprofit and community-sponsored projects, won the development rights after the Baltimore Housing department issued a bid.

The Station North district is home to the Charles Theatre, Tapas Teatro, and a number of galleries and theater troupes, including Single Carrot Theatre and Annex Theater and Gallery. It will lose one of its anchors, Everyman Theatre Co., when the group moves to Baltimore's west side next year.

Located at Greenmount Avenue and E. Hoffman Street, the apartments replace vacant land and homes.

"The idea is to provide better housing for people in the community and create more life on the street by having people living on Greenmount Avenue," French says. The economic conditions aren't strong enough to build market-rate housing, but hopefully in time they will be.

The apartments will include one, two, and three-bedroom units. They are available to individuals and families who pull in 50 percent below the Baltimore metro area media income, or around $41,000 for a family of four.

Designed by Cho Benn Holback+Associates Inc., the four-story building includes a courtyard and exterior made of brick, cement and glass.

Sources: Jim French, French Co.; David Benn, Cho Benn Holback+Associates
Writer: Julekha Dash

The Baltimore Museum of Art has chosen Ziger/Snead to design its biggest capital project in its history, a $24 million renovation to be completed in 2014.

A total of 11 architecture firms competed for the project, of which the BMA selected five for its short list. Those firms were Ayers Saint Gross, Design Collective, Inc,. GWWO Inc./Architects, Ziger/Snead, and RTKL Associates Inc.

The BMA chose Ziger/Snead based on its clarity of vision and design and their success in renovating both historic and contemporary buildings. Its projects include the Maryland Institute College of Art Brown Center and the Frederick Douglas-Isaac Myers Maritime Park and Museum.

The BMA renovation is expected to create 185 construction and other jobs.

The renovation will include upgrades to visitor amenities, infrastructure improvements, and better displays of the museum's 90,000 works of art. Two new roofs and a building automation system to improve care of the museum's art are part of the upgrades.

The project will be funded in part by a $10 million multi-year commitment from the state and $2.5 million in bonds from Baltimore City.

Writer: Julekha Dash
Source: Anne Mannix, BMA

Kashmir Imports will move this summer from its spot in Baltimore's Harbor East to a larger store at the Shops in Kenilworth to get closer to its affluent clients in Baltimore County and Baltimore City.

At its new home, the shop will be known simply as Kashmir, co-owner Pat McCarty says. The 1,180-square-foot shop in Harbor East sells embroidered jackets, shawls, scarves, and lacquer boxes from Kashmir India.

Once it opens at Kenilworth in August or September, it will have more space to carry gifts in the 1,880-square-foot store. New store items will include lamps made from a banyan tree in Cambodia and a handbag made from a zipper designed by a Colorado architect. 

Many of Kashmir's top customers are moms who live in Roland Park or Towson, McCarty says. The location at Kenilworth will make it easier to reach more of those clients. Terri Harrington of MacKenzie Commercial Real Estate Services LLC brokered the lease deal.

McCarty and her husband Javid Mahajan opened their first retail outlet in 2004 with a shop in Washington, D.C.,'s Union Station.

Mahajan's brother works directly with the families who produced the Kashmiri handicrafts that the stores sell.

Writer: Julekha Dash
Source: Pat McCarty

White Marsh Mall is getting four new tenants this year, including Maryland's first P.S. from Aeropostale children's clothing store.

Women's clothing and accessory store Francesca's Collections, Red Robin Gourmet Burgers,and Chinese takeout Master Wok will also join the mall as it looks to beef up its retail roster that appeals to women, teens, and families.

Selling clothes for kids ages five to 12, the 3,265-square-foot P.S. store will open late June on the second floor in the former Aeropostale space, White Marsh Mall Marketing Manager Michelle Jose says. Teen clothier Aeropostale moved into a larger 5,273-square-foot store earlier this month near JC Penney.

Francesca's Collections will open a 1,369-square-foot store in June on the lower level, its fourth in Greater Baltimore. Its other stores are in Westfield Annapolis, the Gallery at Harborplace and Towson Town Center.

Red Robin will serve up burgers in a 6,278-square-foot shop around December of this year while Master Wok will open a 708-square-foot stall at the food court this month.

It will be Red Robin's fifth store in the Greater Baltimore region. Known for its red d�cor, big booths, and offering balloons and crayons for kids, Red Robin's other stores are in Annapolis, Columbia, Owings Mills, and Towson.

Writer: Julekha Dash
Source: Michelle Jose, White Marsh Mall

Towson Town Center will get two new stores this summer, including Maryland's first Free People shop.

Urban Outfitters' Free People brand will open a 1,906-square-foot store on the fourth floor. The retailer appeals to twenty-something women and sells styles that are more feminine and flirty than the Urban Outfitters brand.

Madewell, a subsidiary of J.Crew, will open a 3,155-square-foot store on the fourth floor of the Macy's Wing. It's the second Madewell store in Maryland. The other Madewell is located at Westfield Annapolis mall.

Towson Town Center's Chuck Crerand says the new stores will hopefully appeal to the affluent customers it is targeting. The mall expanded two years ago to include a luxury wing featuring Burberry and Louis Vuitton. Last fall, Tiffany & Co. Inc. opened its only Baltimore area store at the mall.

Crerand says the mall is hunting for more high-end brands with mass appeal.

Writer: Julekha Dash
Source: Chuck Crerand, Towson Town Center

Wellness education school Tai Sophia Institute is launching a new masters program in the fall as it embarks on a 10-year growth plan to quadruple its enrollment.

The Laurel school will enroll 45 students in September in its masters in nutrition and integrative health. It may add a second batch of students in January if demand for the program continues, Tai Sophia Provost Judith Broida says.

The school already has enough applicants to fill the fall class without advertising it. The program will take a look at how food is an important component of wellness.

School officials are scouting Howard County for a commercial kitchen they can lease where students can prepare meals to support the program and others. Eventually, it would like to own its own building housing one.

That's not the only real estate it will need in the coming years. The school will require new buildings to house classrooms, administrative offices, and labs as it seeks to add more students.

Broida says she hopes to increase enrollment from 550 students to 2,000 over the next 10 years. That doesn't include students who will hopefully be enrolled online once it begins a distance learning program late 2012. 

The school has launched six new programs in the last year and four new programs in the coming year. These include a masters in integrative health coaching and graduate certificate programs in Chinese wellness systems, specialty acupuncture and Aryuvedic health.

As health care costs rise, people are looking for alternatives to western, allopathic medicine, Broida says.

Writer: Julekha Dash
Source: Judith Broida

Baltimore will get a new museum devoted to black athletes in the Northwest section of the city that officials hope will jumpstart the area's revitalization.

The Druid Heights Community Development Corp. is building the Negro Baseball Museum and Restaurant at 2101-11 Pennsylvania Ave., the site of the former jazz club that hosted legendary performers Billie Holiday and John Coltrane. The group hopes the museum will bring jobs and visitors to the neglected area.

The CDC will put out a bid in June for a construction firm and expects to begin building the museum later in the summer, says Roscoe Johnson, Druid Heights' director of real estate development. The Black Athletes and Lost Legends Association, a Baltimore nonprofit, will operate the museum and an adjacent caf�.

"Hopefully it will attract other businesses to the area," Johnson says. "It's very important that we do this right and it looks good."

Funding for the $9 million museum comes from the state, State Farm Insurance Cos., federal New Market Tax Credits, and foundations.
Baltimore's urban design panel gave final approval for the museum April 14. Druid Heights won the right to develop the project after the Baltimore Development Corp. sought out proposals to redevelop the former Sphinx Club.

The 14,000-square-foot museum and Negro League Caf� will create as many as 85 jobs, Johnson says.

The museum will focus on black athletes from Baltimore in a variety of sports, including boxing, football, basketball and baseball. It will also highlight black athletes who comprised the Negro League, the black baseball players who had their separate teams before the sport was integrated.

Writer: Julekha Dash
Source: Roscoe Johnson, Druid Heights Community Development Corp.

Local small business owners are taking advantage of lower retail rents, helping the Baltimore market slowly recover from the recession.

That is according to MacKenzie Commercial Real Estate's retail report for the first quarter of 2011. The greater Baltimore region had an overall retail vacancy rate of 6.3 percent, down from 7.1 percent a year ago.

Several of new businesses to open were restaurants, including Black Olive Agora, Mari Luna Bistro and Ooh La La Cupcakery.

Vacancy rates varied by region, according to the report. Carroll County had the lowest rate, at 4.8 percent. Parts of Baltimore City had vacancy rates around 10 percent.

Retail rents dropped nearly $2 per square foot, to $17.62, compared with a year ago as landlords continued to make concessions to fill empty storefronts.

"The activity for independent businesses is on the uptick," says John Schultz, MacKenzie's senior real estate advisor. "I just hope it leads to actual deals being made" in the future.

Writer: Julekha Dash
Source: John Schultz, MacKenzie Commercial Real Estate

LifeBridge Health is doubling its number of physical therapy clinics in the next 15 months, with plans to spend up to $2.4 million on the new offices.

The health care group sees an opportunity to expand its reach in rehabilitation services as the baby boomers age and people stay active longer, says Matt Carlen, executive director of LifeBridge's wellness division.

"People are more active and more aware of what physical therapy can do for them."

LifeBridge Health this month opened its sixth physical therapy clinic in Reisterstown. Its services include back and neck care, orthopedic physical therapy, work injury, and neurological rehabilitation. LifeBridge Health's other physical therapy clinics are in Eldersburg, Owings Mills, Timonium, Pikesville, and Towson.

North Baltimore County and West Baltimore City will likely hold future physical therapy clinics, Carlen says. The new clinics will employ a total of 50. The new physical therapy clinics will involve building new offices and taking over existing ones.

LifeBridge Health is composed of Sinai Hospital, Northwest Hospital, Levindale Hebrew Geriatric Center and Hospital, Courtland Gardens Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, and LifeBridge Health and Fitness.

Writer: Julekha Dash
Source: Matt Carlen, LifeBridge

Sandwiches, soups, and burritos are staples of the casual dining scene.

But soon falafel, hummus, and eggplant fries will be as ubiquitous as soup in a bread bowl if four Maryland entrepreneurs have it their way. The owners of Tahina's Mediterranean Grill in Owings Mills recently received their franchising license in Maryland and Virginia and are hungry for franchisees who can open 10 stores in the next year, Partner Jeff McCabe says.

Towson, Columbia, and downtown Baltimore are some of the locations that interest them. McCabe says he thinks the store could do well in both strip centers and malls in high-volume, busy areas.

Each store would cost between $140,000 and $280,000 to build. It would average around 1,3000 square feet.

Tahina's setup is similar to that of Subway or Chipotle. Customers select whether they want a salad bowl or pita pocket sandwich. Then they select a protein (chicken, beef or falafel), followed by an array of toppings that include olives, carrots, eggplant, chickpeas, and a cucumber-and-tomato salad.

"We wanted something unique," McCabe says of the restaurant concept. McCabe, who owns a restaurant design firm, says he believes Mediterranean food is a void in the casual dining market.

His partners are Jory Schunick, Morris Scherlis, and David Levitt, a former Outback Steakhouse executive.

Writer: Julekha Dash
Source: Jeff McCabe, Tahina's

The Maryland Transportation Authority will issue a bid this spring for the redevelopment and operations of the aging Maryland House and Chesapeake Travel Plazas.

The redevelopment is expected to occur via a public-private partnership. An outside firm would incur the costs to design and rebuild the travel plazas in Harford and Cecil Counties in exchange for a long-term contract to manage them, transportation spokeswoman Kelly Melham says.

The agency doesn't have an exact date for issuing the bid, but has given notice to the Maryland legislature that it intends to do so, Melham says.

HMSHost Corp. of Bethesda currently operates the retail and food service in the travel plazas.

The transportation agency had originally been scheduled to issue a bid in the fall, but canceled the plans after repeated revisions to the plan and several extensions to the deadline.

The Maryland House Travel Plaza in Aberdeen dates to 1963. The Chesapeake House Travel Plaza in North East opened in 1975.

Writer: Julekha Dash
Source: Kelly Melham, Maryland Transportation Authority

Entertainment Cruises Inc. is pumping $1.2 million into its operations in Baltimore's Inner Harbor.

The company is spending about $750,000 to add a second speedboat and another $500,000 to make one of its dinner cruise boats more fuel efficient, General Manager Dan Leaman says.

The company is replacing two old engines in its Spirit of Baltimore boat with Tier 3 engines that are more eco-friendly. The boat should use 79,000 fewer gallons of diesel fuel over its lifetime, Leaman says.

Entertainment Cruises will start running Seadog VI, its second speedboat, April 14. The company expects to hire about 20 employees to sell tickets and staff the boat.

The boat, which can accommodate 106 passengers, takes visitors on a 50-minute sightseeing tour from the Inner Harbor to Key Bridge and back.

The company's first Seadog boat ferried 21,000 passengers last year. Entertainment Cruises hopes to double that number this year with the second boat, Leaman says.

Based in Chicago, Entertainment Cruises oversees 24 ships in seven other cities: Boston, Chicago, Norfolk, Va. Philadelphia, New York, Washington, D.C., and Weehawken, N.J.

Writer: Julekha Dash
Source: Dan Leaman,

Saint Agnes Hospital is building a residence that will house the families of patients with long-term illnesses.

Willard Hackerman, CEO of Whiting-Turner Contracting Co., and wife, Lillian Patz Hackerman, donated $2 million to support the building. To be completed in spring 2012, the Hackerman-Patz House will initially house the Daughters of Charity, the nuns that founded the Catonsville hospital.

The 16-room residence will eventually be equipped with "hotel-style" services, such as housekeeping and a check-in desk for guests, says William Greskovich, the hospital's vice president of operations.

As of now, there is no place for patients' families traveling from outside the state to stay on the hospital campus, Greskovich says.

The 13,000-square-foot, two-story, building will also include a chapel, kitchen, dining room, and community room.

A 314-bed hospital, Saint Agnes was founded in 1862 by the Daughters of Charity to serve the poor. It includes a Cancer Institute, a Women's and Children's Health Institute, an Orthopaedic and Spine Institute, and a Cardiovascular Institute.

Hackerman-Patz houses are located on the campus of other Greater Baltimore hospitals, including Sinai Hospital and Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Writer: Julekha Dash
Source: William Greskovich, Saint Agnes Hospital

Organic products are sprouting up all over the place � milk, meats, apples, cleaning supplies.

Now the organic trend has hit the beauty industry. Two Baltimore women, Ambra Black and Maryam Dennis, are opening an organic nail salon mid-May in Locust Point.

Juste-B., to be located at 1624 E. Fort Ave., will offer manicures and pedicures and soy-based waxes. The scrubs and other products used on hands and feet will be made with essential oils and natural sugars, Dennis says. Nail polishes are water-based and don't rely on any chemicals.

The partners, who are spending $30,000 of their own money to start the business, will make their own foot scrubs using herbs from their herb garden.

Juste-B will be one of a handful of organic salons in Greater Baltimore. Others include Hampden's Sprout and Insignia in Overlea.

"We should be able to be healthy and beautiful without having to sacrifice the health of the planet," Dennis says.

Juste-B will embrace other green initiatives, including using light sensors and serving organic wine and vodka to guests. A combined manicure and pedicure will cost about $40.  

The business owners chose Locust Point because it's a "new and upcoming neighborhood." With office and retail developments like McHenry Row, to be anchored by a Harris Teeter grocery store, underway, the business owners hope to get in on the area before it really builds up.


Writer: Julekha Dash
Source: Maryam Dennis, Juste B

Maryland may once again roll out the red carpet for Hollywood productions.

State legislators are weighing a bill that would dramatically raise the amount of rebates Maryland offers film crews from $1 million to $15 million.

That would make the state more competitive for silver screen productions, after losing film business to other states. Maryland has cut its incentives over the last few years from a high of $7 million in 2007 to $1 million this year.

Sponsored by Democratic Sen. Edward J. Kasemeyer, Senate Bill 672 would raise the film incentives' budget to $15 million. Kasemeyer represents Baltimore and Howard Counties. Del. Melony G. Griffith, D-Prince George's County, has sponsored the corresponding House Bill.

The Senate bill passed the Budget and Taxation committee. House Bill 1148 is being heard by the Ways and Means committee. Under the incentive program, film crews that spend at least $500,000 receive up to a 25 percent rebate on their expenses incurred in the state.

The money would get Maryland back on a level playing field with other states, says Jed Dietz, director of the Maryland Film Festival.

"It would make a huge difference in this industry," Dietz says.

Film advocates decry losing out on "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." The $150 million budget movie starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett was set to shoot in Baltimore, but filmmakers rewrote the script and chose Louisiana, which has no cap on the amount of money it spends annually on film crews.

Though the state is staring at a massive deficit, growing the film incentive program will reward the state financially by bringing jobs and spending, Dietz says.

According to Sage Policy Group, film crews generated $158 million in economic impact in Maryland in fiscal year 2006 when funding was at its highest.

Writer: Julekha Dash
Sources: Maryland legislature; Jed Dietz, Maryland Film Festival