Commercial Real Estate : Buzz

Those trendy lower Manhattanites are about to get a dose of Baltimore-style athletic wear.

Under Armour, which has been expanding its retail presence, has signed a lease in Soho, the New York Post reports. The 7,000-square-foot store, to open next year, is its first in New York. The company opened its first non-outlet retail store in Baltimore's Harbor East. It also recently opened a store in Shanghai and is opening a retail outlet in Tysons Corner, Va.

The company also recently opened a visitor center in Tide Point. 

Home improvement magazine This Old House has chosen Locust Point as one of the best neighborhoods in the Northeast with charming, historic old homes.

The publication chose neighborhoods that have "plenty of New England charm, plus main streets and marinas that embrace East Coast living."

Of Locust Point, the magazine says it has a "gritty feel that celebrates its industrial past." It highlights Fort McHenry and Fort Avenue, with its local bars and crab houses and says the neighborhood is "the kind of place that would make Baltimore native and avant-garde filmmaker John Waters proud."

Norwich, Conn., Middletown Del., and Castine, Maine were some of the other towns that were honored for their historic houses.  

Next City, a public policy and current events website that explores urban issues, has highlighted the massive, $1.8 billion development in East Baltimore led by Johns Hopkins in a recent issue.

Though Hopkins has long been criticized for its relationship with the surrounding community, the university hopes that a new school opening in the fall can move the biopark and residential development forward. The school is embracing its role as a so-called "anchor institution" that can serve as a catalyst for growth in its surrounding neighborhoods. 

"The latest redevelopment promise — a $1.8 billion, 10-years-in-the-making endeavor to raze 88 acres worth of abandoned blocks and rebuild the neighborhood with a Hopkins-partnered primary school as the centerpiece — has similarly grown entangled with racial tension and accusations of corruption," Next City writes. "But this time, a plan to both enroll students from the neighborhood and attract new people to the area means that the needs of Middle East may not get left behind."

You can read the entire story here. (Subscription required.)

Baltimore resident Carol Ott’s unconventional job takes her to neighborhoods in Baltimore with boarded-up windows and vacant properties, according to the Atlantic Cities.

The website, which focuses on urban areas across the globe, reported that Ott is behind Baltimore Slumlord Watch, a blog that publishes any information that Ott can obtain about vacant properties in Baltimore. 

The goal of the blog is to identify neglected properties and their owners in an effort to solve Baltimore’s problem with vacant homes.

Ott also began a second website in June, called Housing Policy Watch, to educate renters and landlords about common issues. Ott began this project with help from the nonprofit Baltimore Neighborhoods Inc.

According to The Atlantic Cities, Ott has been a resident of Baltimore for 13 years and says that her websites are a way for her to show “some tough love” to the city.

Read the full story here.

On the heels of its reopening of an expanded contemporary wing, the Baltimore Museum of Art is plotting a series of new renovations to finish in the fall of 2014, when the museum celebrates its 100th birthday.

The BMA's upcoming renovations include a re-opening of the museum's original entrance, the Dorothy McIlvain Scott American Wing and the East Wing entrance and lobby, Art Daily writes. Additional renovations that will wrap up spring 2015 include a new Asian and African art collections and  a creative learning center that will help children better relate to the art around them.

Read more about the BMA renovations here.

Restaurant owners Tony Foreman and Cindy Wolf are heading West for their latest venture. 

The duo behind Pazo, Petit Louis Bistro, Johnny's, Cinghiale and Charleston are opening a new, yet unnamed restaurant on Columbia's Lakefront, the Baltimore Sun reports. The restaurant will replace the shuttered Red Pearl, next to the popular Sushi Sono. 

The restaurant will likely open by the end of the year and hire 60 to 70, Tony Foreman tells the Sun. Its the first Howard County business for the Foreman Wolf Restaurant Group. 

Read the entire story here. 

Entrepreneur magazine has named the Four Seasons Hotel Baltimore the Best New Business Hotel in its 2013 Business Travel Awards.

"It juts into the Inner Harbor and shows off marina and downtown views with floor-to-ceiling windows in guest rooms and many of the meeting spaces," Entrepreneur writes. 

The $200 million Harbor East hotel opened in 2011, nearly a decade after it was first proposed.

The magazine asks Chris Reid, president of hotel operations for Four Seasons Americas, why the company chose Baltimore over a larger city.

"You're a much more important player, relative to the city," Reid tells Entrepreneur. "Your hotel becomes an important landmark. And if you think about some of the businesses that are in Baltimore, for example, there's vibrant economic activity there. We believe that will only grow from here."

Read the entire story here. 

Rite Aid Corp. is the latest pharmacy chain that is venturing into health care, writes the Wall Street Journal. 

Rite Aid rolled out 58 virtual health clinics in Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh March 1. For a fee of $45, a patient can chat with a doctor via Web camera, the Journal writes.  

The pharmacy giant initially tested the concept in Detroit. You can read the rest of the story here. 

Baltimore was abuzz Feb. 16 for the opening of Under Armour's new retail store in Harbor East. 

More than half the store is devoted to ladies' apparel as the Baltimore sportswear company is hoping to woo some of the women who buy pricey yoga outfits from Lululemon, writes Bloomberg.

Under Armour is also getting ready to open a New York office so it can tap top design talent to create feminine sportswear.

Executive Leanne Fremar  "is working on opening Under Armour’s first New York office, where she’ll tap design talent," Bloomberg writes.

"She also inherits a unit that has been growing 30 percent a year and added the Studio, a yoga-inspired line, and Armour Bra brands last year."

We all know that D.C. is way more expensive than Baltimore.

But apartment rents for new leases actually grew at a faster clip last year in Baltimore versus our neighbor to the South, according to Property Management Insider.  

New apartment rents grew 2.7 percent in Baltimore compared with 1.4 percent in Washington, D.C. There's a lot more apartment construction happening in D.C., so prices there aren't growing as fast as Baltimore, where the supply is more limited.

You can see the entire report here. 

Before Under Armour debuted its Brand House Feb. 16, CEO Kevin Plank and other executives gave New York media a preview of the 8,000-square-foot shop and what's in store for the Baltimore sportswear company. 

"The first item Plank introduced wasn’t a product after all, but a place where Under Armour will display its goods," Forbes writes about the Harbor East store.

Execs also talked about "Infrared, part of Under Armour’s innovative ColdGear line," new running shoes the company will unveil this summer, and a digital training monitor, Forbes says.

"There must be, among rival companies like Columbia and even Nike, to a degree, a bit of jealousy regarding Under Armour and its founder," writes Forbes of the company that pulled in $1.2 billion in sales last year. 

The South Baltimore Recreation Center has officially reopened as a neigborhood technology center, thanks to the efforts of the Riverside community and Digital Harbor High School supporters.

Forbes takes a look at the new venue, where Balitmore City school students can learn about web design, mobile app development and digital media production. 

"The center’s grand opening was a packed house, where excited participants got to show equally excited visitors the fruits of some of their early work, providing a taste of what’s to come from the space," the magazine writes. "Shelly Blake-Plock, the executive co-director of the Digital Harbor Foundation, delivered such an impassioned welcome speech that you could almost see where all this excitement was coming from."

You can read the rest of the story here. 

We've often highlighted USA Today stories that make mention of Baltimore hotels. 

Now USA Today has featured a BmoreMedia news story on two Baltimore hotels that are debuting new restaurants at their properties. And now we're featuring the USA Today story that highlights our original article. How very meta, you say. 

One of the hotels, the Tremont Plaza Suites Hotel is converting to a Hilton Embassy Suites. And as part of the makeover, Hilton is debuting its new restaurant concept Brickstones in Baltimore. 

"Months after celebrity chef Michael Mina opened not one but two restaurants at Baltimore's new luxury Four Seasons hotel, two other Baltimore hotels are preparing to unveil new restaurants," USA Today writes. 

"One restaurant will open in the future Embassy Suites hotel, which will occupy the old Tremont Plaza hotel in downtown Baltimore, bmoremedia.com reports."

The Four Seasons Hotel Baltimore continues to get plenty of ink in USA Today. 

In a recent article, the newspaper wrote about Baltimore developer Michael Beatty's decade-long effort to bring the hotel to Charm City. 

"Over the last decade, Beatty's firm has been steadily developing the upscale Harbor East neighborhood along the harbor near trendy Fells Point where the glass-wrapped Four Seasons tower stands," USA Today writes in its story titled "Four Seasons Bets Big on Baltimore."

"The pedestrian-friendly neighborhood contains several towers with pricey corporate offices, apartments and four other hotels including a Hilton Garden Inn and the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront. Harbor East's shopping options include national and local clothing shops (Anthropologie and J. Crew will open locations later this summer), as well as a Whole Foods supermarket."

You can read the rest of the story here.

Baltimore may have shed its image as the gritty, crime-infested city depicted in the The Wire. That's according to USA Today, which credits the Four Seasons Baltimore as the watershed development that has helped Baltimore's image. It features a 44-image slideshow of the property. 

"The Four Seasons Baltimore hotel tower is the newest tower on Baltimore's skyline in the upscale Harbor East neighborhood, which contains retail shops, restaurants, galleries, apartments and office space," USA Today writes. "The hip retail shop Anthropologie will open a location in the hotel complex in late summer."

Check out the slideshow here.