City approves superblock deal
Baltimore Business Journal - 4:24 PM EST Wednesdayby Daniel J. SernovitzStaff

Baltimore City's spending board on Wednesday backed a $21 million land deal clearing the way for the redevelopment of the city's so-called superblock, despite concerns about the financial benefit to the city and by residents about the condemnation of land for the project.

"That's been a real balance, to keep the business people here as well as to attract new business," City Council President and Mayor Designee Sheila Dixon said during the city's Board of Estimates meeting Wednesday morning. "This is really only the beginning."

As part of the controversial proposal that goes back for several years, the city will acquire some three dozen properties on the city's west side, some by purchase and others by condemnation, in order to sell them to a development team led by the New York-based Chera Feil Goldman Group for $21.6 million.

The city will reduce the price by as much as $10 million, to offset the developer's cost for demolishing buildings and preparing the site for new construction. Chera has proposed to create about 200,000 square feet of retail space and between 400 and 500 market-rate residential units in the six-block area starting at W. Fayette and Liberty Streets.

Comptroller Joan M. Pratt argued the city will take in significantly less than the $21.6 million figure, factoring in the price reduction and other city concessions, including the relocation of what few tenants remain in the area. She suggested the deal could result in little to no actual profit to the city for acquiring and selling the land.

Baltimore Development Corp. President M.J. "Jay" Brodie said the deal cannot simply be measured in how much the developers pay for the land but should also be considered in the context of how much economic impact the development will have in the long run. Through 2010, when the work is scheduled to be finished, Brodie said the project will generate as many as 350 retail jobs and $3.5 million in annual taxes.

The board declined to hear from two prominent critics of the project. One was an attorney representing property owners in the superblock area whose buildings stand to be condemned for the work, and the other was a representative of the West Side Renaissance group, which has criticized how the city went about selecting Chera for the project.

The board did let the daughter of a West Lexington Street property speak on her mother's behalf.

Sylvia Park said her mother has run a business at 105 W. Lexington Street, "surviving 23 years of grime and crime" in the city only to have the city take her property away. She argued the city should embrace its small business owners instead of turning its back on them. Park's lawyer, John Murphy, was the lawyer not allowed to speak during the meeting.

"Small business owners represent a special breed of people, stoic, smart and hard-working," she said. "I ask you, leaders of Baltimore, to let my mother keep her property at 105 W. Lexington St."

Brodie said he understood Park's concerns and said the city will do what it can to make sure Park is not shut out by the process.

"Mr. Murphy has my word that we will continue to work with you," Brodie said.


City Councilwoman Helen L. Holton said she had hoped to see the plan include affordable-housing units, rather than more expensive market-rate housing. While Brodie said he had not considered the possibility, he is willing to talk with Chera to see if the group can set aside some of the residential units as affordable housing.

Isaac Chera, managing partner for the Chera Feil Goldman Group, said he is hoping to work with local merchants as part of the plan and would like to select a mix of local and national merchants for the superblock once it is developed. He said there are only a few merchants in the area, but he is open to talking with those business owners to determine how well they will fit into the group's master plan.

"It would come down to a mix," he said. "We, as developers, are extremely sensitive to local merchants; the local merchants are a critical part of development. Otherwise you would just have a strip center or a mall out there."

S. Jerome Hagley III, executive vice president of the Harold A. Dawson Co., which is partnering with Chera on the project, said he hopes to create a high-end retail presence in the west side, which could include a range of "scaled-down department stores" and stores like H&M and Forever 21.

"We hope to develop a true live [and] work development with destination retail," he said.

Hagley said the group hopes to have detailed plans for the project within the next 90 days, though the city has given itself until the end of the year to acquire all the properties it needs in order to sell them to Chera.

After waiting nearly two decades, Johns Hopkins University is making its first move in transforming 108 acres in Rockville into a world-class research park.

The university plans to issue a request for proposals in the next six months to help it develop a master plan for the area, barely a mile west of its Rockville campus.

Just another reason why D.C. isn't capable of maintaining it's own jurisdiction if it has full state rights. These are the same arrogant D.C. residents who want nothing to with Maryland but at the same time in hiding are using MY tax dollars to fullfill their elitist ways.

Maryland...you're too damn giving of a state.

Bethesda Rescue Squad's D.C. Service Draws Criticism

By Katherine Shaver
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 14, 2007; Page C01

When some District residents feel frightening chest pains, struggle to breathe or face other medical emergencies, they don't call 911. They dial the 301 area code for a direct line to the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Rescue Squad in Montgomery County.

Unlike city ambulances, the Bethesda-Chevy Chase service is free. It also delivers patients to their hospital of choice. And the volunteer squad provides a ready alternative for those alarmed by stories of D.C. paramedics providing poor care or arriving late.

For 70 years, the ambulances have served a wedge of the city from the Potomac River to areas west of Rock Creek Park in Ward 3, leading some critics to view the service as an outdated, unfair perk for the District's wealthiest majority-white neighborhoods. Moreover, some say, it undermines efforts to repair the city's emergency services, which residents elsewhere have no choice but to depend upon.

"How does the most affluent ward in the District get a sweetheart deal with Montgomery County while the rest of the wards get cut out?" asked Leo Alexander, 42, a real estate investor who lives east of the park outside the squad's service area and is pushing to end the practice.

In Montgomery, some residents are asking a different question: Why are rescuers, supported at least in part with county tax dollars, devoting their time and resources to another jurisdiction, especially while parts of Montgomery face shortages of emergency services?

Bethesda-Chevy Chase Rescue is mostly staffed with volunteers and funded by private donations, but the squad receives training, some equipment and retirement benefits from the county.

"If Montgomery County really has all these extra resources, they should be distributed in Montgomery County, not in the District of Columbia," said Susan Payne, a citizen activist who lives in Gaithersburg. Residents in Northwest Washington "have basically hired a private ambulance service and billed it to the taxpayers of Montgomery County."

Reliance on the Bethesda-Chevy Chase squad is so common in Upper Northwest that many residents keep a blue-and-white sticker with the station's phone number on their home phones.

Gail Lynch, a resident of the District's Chevy Chase neighborhood, learned about the service from the previous owner when she bought her house a few blocks from a D.C. fire station. "It's gospel to always call B-CC," she said.

"The fact now is, we have to rely on them," said Anne Renshaw, a former advisory neighborhood commissioner for Ward 3. Case in point, she said: "B-CC was not called in on the Rosenbaum case."

In that high-profile case, retired New York Times reporter David E. Rosenbaum died last January after a mugging on his usually quiet Northwest street. An investigation by the D.C. inspector general later found "alarming levels of complacency and indifference" among the D.C. emergency medical service workers who treated him, among other problems.

Providing mutual aid across city and county lines during major incidents is common, especially in densely populated areas with several jurisdictions. If a major wreck or large fire occurs in one area, firefighters and rescue workers from another often assist on the call or help cover stations left unmanned.

But the arrangement between the District and Bethesda-Chevy Chase Rescue goes beyond that, allowing residents to call ambulances from another jurisdiction for any medical reason.

Last year, the squad, stationed just north of downtown Bethesda, answered 1,125 calls -- 14 percent of its annual total -- in the District, traveling as far south as the National Zoo.

Kenneth Lyons, president of the union representing the District's emergency workers, said it's difficult to persuade city officials to spend more to improve emergency services citywide if the most politically influential residents of Northwest can get help elsewhere.

"If you're going to serve the city, serve the city," said Lyons, who lives in Takoma Park and works as a District paramedic in Chevy Chase. "Don't just pick one ward."

A Neighborhood Tradition



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Service to Upper Northwest has historical roots in a community that happens to straddle a jurisdictional line, said Bethesda-Chevy Chase Chief Edward Sherburne. The squad began with one ambulance in a Northwest garage in 1937 and continued to serve that area even after moving to Bethesda in the 1950s. A formal memorandum of understanding between the squad and the District's fire and EMS department was codified into Montgomery law in 2005.

"We started in D.C., matured out here and just kept the relationship over the years," Sherburne said.

The squad does not respond to calls outside Ward 3, he said, because Rock Creek Park is a natural "physical barrier" that keeps response times reasonable. Providing the service for free ensures that patients won't refuse an ambulance transport out of cost concerns, he said.

Northwest residents receive Bethesda-Chevy Chase service even if they never donate to it. They contribute about 15 percent of the squad's private donations and account for about the same percentage of calls, Sherburne said. Those donations help pay for equipment that benefits Montgomery residents, he said.

Serving Ward 3 also keeps the call volume high enough to maintain volunteers' medical skills while providing them with enough excitement to stay interested, he said.

Sherburne estimated that five or fewer Montgomery calls each month require an ambulance to come from farther away because the rescue squad's units are tied up. Hard numbers are unavailable, Sherburne and county officials said.

But a newly elected Montgomery County Council member, Marc Elrich (D-At Large), who lives in Takoma Park, said he is troubled by a Montgomery squad providing free service that D.C. residents should receive from their own government.

Elrich also noted that the Bethesda-Chevy Chase squad provides non-emergency ambulance transports -- such as taking hospital patients home -- for its D.C. and southern Montgomery clientele. Residents in other parts of Montgomery must pay a private ambulance at least $300 for such calls. "That's just not right," Elrich said.

County fire chief Thomas W. Carr Jr. said, "Perception-wise, it's a tough issue." Carr estimated that in the past five years, the county has spent an average of $500,000 annually on the squad's training, radio system, vehicle computers and retirement benefits. Sherburne disputed that estimate as too high.

The county also spends $500,000 annually for two paramedic positions on weekdays, though those medics may not answer calls in the District unless requested by the city's EMS, Carr said.

He called the arrangement "a net gain" for Montgomery taxpayers. That's because the Bethesda-Chevy Chase squad's status as a largely self-supporting volunteer organization -- the squad buys its own vehicles, gas, insurance and most equipment -- saves the county at least $3.2 million annually, Carr said.

Privately Funded



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Other fast-growing areas of Montgomery -- such as Germantown, Aspen Hill, Silver Spring and Rockville -- could use some of the squad's "excess capacity" now going to the District, Carr said. However, he said, he can't force its volunteers to serve elsewhere and can't move privately funded equipment from Bethesda.

"My most critical perspective is: Are we assuring that we're providing good service in Montgomery County?" Carr said. "If the answer to that is yes and they have this excess capacity, I'm okay with that."

The squad usually receives $60,000 to $90,000 annually in state grants for major station construction, Sherburne said. Most of its $1.3 million annual operating budget comes from door-to-door fundraising, corporate and foundation donations, and Christmas tree sales, he said.

"I admit this model would be more difficult in an area that's not as affluent," Sherburne said. "But if the community is willing to support the organization and we're providing services that help so many people, I don't see what the problem is."

D.C. City Administrator Dan Tangherlini said he, too, doesn't see a problem. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) has made improving emergency services a "high priority" so that all residents will want to call 911 first, Tangherlini said. However, if a Maryland squad wants to serve the District, he said, the city won't preclude it.

"We aren't looking for an indirect subsidy from Montgomery County," Tangherlini said. "If people in that area [of Northwest] want to call B-CC, we don't have a problem with it. But we want to provide service of such quality that they don't have to call B-CC."

Former County Council member Howard A. Denis (R), who represented the Bethesda area for six years, said he has heard some "low-level unhappiness" about the D.C. calls. However, he said, most residents who know about the arrangement view it as part of being a good neighbor. "They get a lot of private support for a reason," Denis said of the squad, "because of their first-class response."

^^ ^^
DC pisses me off. Retrocede now!

^^ ^^
DC pisses me off. Retrocede now!

:righton:

FRONT PAGE: Johns Hopkins plans massive research park in Montgomery County, Maryland

Washington Business Journal - January 12, 2007by Vandana SinhaStaff Reporter

http://cll.bizjournals.com/story_image/68066-400-0.jpg?rev=2

Joanne S. Lawton
budding biotech: Elaine Amir is seeking feedback from the community as well as businesses on plans to transform 108 acres in Montgomery County into a major biotech research destination.
View Larger


After waiting nearly two decades, Johns Hopkins University is making its first move in transforming 108 acres in Rockville into a world-class research park.

The university plans to issue a request for proposals in the next six months to help it develop a master plan for the area, barely a mile west of its Rockville campus.


This marks the first step toward bringing Belward Research Campus, a long-planned massive science center, to life.

Although nothing's been inked, if the project is built it could face heady competition from two other biotech research campuses in the region, both of which have a considerable jump on Johns Hopkins.

The University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute's Center for Advanced Research in Biotechnology in Shady Grove opened in 1989 and cut the ribbon on a $60 million expansion in September.

This past October, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute opened its $500 million Janelia Farm Research Campus in Ashburn.

In addition, Montgomery County is negotiating for a 115 acres in White Oak to build a science and technology park in the next decade.

Hopkins leaders say they want to complement those ventures. They will solicit input from county, neighborhood and university leaders before completing the design in the next three years.

"What we're talking about in general is much bigger than us," says Elaine Amir, executive director of Johns Hopkins Montgomery County. "It's not going off and looking at one piece of land or one piece of the region. It's a bigger picture, and we can't do it alone. It's a very, very different approach than what we've taken before."

That difference will pay off for Johns Hopkins in the long run, says Amy Lubas, partnership developer at North Carolina State University's Centennial Campus. The $650 million, 1,100-acre expanse is home to private companies, academic programs and government agencies, alongside housing, a middle school, hotel, golf course and town center.

"I would be supportive of them taking time to plan well because that will serve them better in the end, even if it takes them longer," Lubas says. "You want people to embrace it. If you build it in a vacuum, it will be difficult to gain support and get buy-in."

Johns Hopkins officials have toured Centennial Campus, as well as other parks from Boston to China.


As those centers have done, Johns Hopkins wants to establish "a very strong collaboration between universities, the business sector and the government sector" says David McDonough, senior director for development oversight at Johns Hopkins Real Estate. "We're thinking about how those scientists can come together to bring their ideas to the marketplace."

Johns Hopkins bought the 138-acre Belward Farm, at Key West Avenue and Great Seneca Highway, in 1989, not long after the cement hardened on the Rockville campus. A Johns Hopkins newsletter at the time said the school paid $5 million to Elizabeth Banks, the remaining heir of the family farm owners.

Banks signed over her deed to Johns Hopkins Real Estate under conditions that the property be designed only for educational, research, agricultural or medical purposes -- and that it be developed only after her departure. That was 16 years before Banks died in 2005 in her farmhouse.

Except for 30 acres that Banks agreed to let Johns Hopkins transfer to the county for new offices, labs and Human Genome Sciences' manufacturing plant, the university has done little to plan for the remaining 1.4 million square feet of developable land.

And once it is developed, a major challenge likely will be filling the campus with tenants.

The master plan for the current campus calls for 900,000 square feet in seven buildings. In 20 years since that plan was created, demand has led only to three of those buildings and 220,000 square feet.

E-maiL: Vsinha@bizjournals.com Phone: 703/258-0838

^^ ^^
This is probably the biggest/best news MoCo has had in 5 years.

That's an exciting development!

Coakley & Williams wins National Harbor contract

Coakley & Williams Construction Inc. of Gaithersburg has won a $61 million contract for the construction of two buildings at the National Harbor development in Fort Washington. The project includes building 158,180 square feet of Class A office and retail space and more than a million square feet of parking.

Hickok Cole Architects of Washington, D.C., is the structures architect for the project, according to Coakley & Williams information.

http://www.gazette.net/images/BusinessGazette/cretoweroaksbg011207_cmykb.jpg
Rendering courtesty of Bovis Lend Lease. Bovis Lend Lease of Bethesda has been awarded the contract to provide general contracting services for One Preserve Parkway at The Preserve at Tower Oaks, a new seven-story, 189,220-square-foot-office building in Rockville. The building will be owned by Boston Properties Inc.


Tower, Lerner make it official

The Tower Cos. and Lerner Enterprises have leased about one-third of a 200,000-square-foot office building scheduled for completion in summer 2008 to themselves.

As previously announced, the two developers will make 2000 Tower Oaks Blvd. in Rockville their headquarters. Tower will occupy 23,000 square feet and Lerner will occupy 46,000 square feet, the two companies said in a joint statement.

Leasing for the project is being handled by Diamond Property Co. of McLean, Va. Suites from 10,000 square feet are available for lease.

Commercial real estatenews items may be mailed to: Steve Monroe, The Business Gazette, 1200 Quince Orchard Blvd., Gaithersburg, MD 20878; e-mailed to smonroe@gazette.net; or faxed to 301-670-7183.

Friday, Jan. 12, 2007
E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

by Sonny Goldreich

Special to The Gazette


http://www.gazette.net/stories/011207/busirea173925_31981.shtml

^^^ Could this be the beginning of a major office construction boom or the last car on the train? I'm starting to see a lot of office cranes go up around Rockville.

Mills takes $1.35B buyout, loses $1.6M in aid
Friday, Jan. 19, 2007
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by Sonny Goldreich

Special to the Gazette


The Mills Corp. of Chevy Chase, the nearly bankrupt shopping center builder, has accepted a buyout deal from a Canadian asset management firm for $1.35 billion.
Brookfield Asset Management Inc. agreed to pay $21 per share of common stock, less than half its trading price a year ago, before news of financial mismanagement began to emerge.

The Toronto company, which owns $50 billion worth of office buildings, power and infrastructure assets, also agreed to assume Mills debt and preferred stock in the agreement, which is valued at $7.5 billion.

Mills will become a new subsidiary of Brookfield, which will provide short-term financing to help pay off $1 billion in debt to Goldman Sachs Mortgage Co. until the merger is completed. Mills warned last week that it faced bankruptcy if it could not meet Goldman Sachs’ March 31 deadline to repay or refinance its loan.

Mills, owner of Lakeforest, Arundel Mills and 36 other malls, chose to go with Brookfield over competing deals from its two biggest shareholders. Farallon Capital Partners LLC, a San Francisco hedge fund, offered to boost its investment in Mills by an additional $499 million. Gazit-Globe Ltd. of Tel Aviv, Israel, offered $1.1 billion and made a last-minute bid Wednesday at an average of $22 per share, with the bid expiring today.

A Gazit spokesman said Mills did not take the best offer and seemed to hint that the merger with Brookfield — which is subject to Mills’ shareholders’ approval — might not yet be a done deal.

‘‘We are disappointed that the Mills Corporation has chosen to accept what we believe is an inferior proposal,” Bruce S. Rubin said in an e-mail. ‘‘We firmly believe that the best interests of the shareholders have not been served by this decision. We are reviewing our options, and will make a determination of our course of action at the appropriate time.”

Mills was founded by shopping mall pioneer Herbert Miller, who used Potomac Mills in Prince William, Va., to develop the concept of vast malls that merge disparate retailers such as full-price retailers with Ikea furniture and upscale discounters like Nordstrom Rack and OFF 5th Saks.

What the Brookfield deal means for Mills’ future as a local company is unclear. Local employees already underwent a round of layoffs last year in the wake of reports of accounting problems that the company said could cut shareholder equity by as much as $352 million. At least 160 Mills jobs were cut company-wide.

Another casualty of Mills’ financial collapse is a $1.63 million package of taxpayer subsidies that helped Mills pay for its move last year [from Arlington,VA] to its new glittering glass-box headquarters at Chevy Chase Center near the Friendship Heights Metro station. The company did not meet its stated plan to move 325 jobs to the site and ended up subleasing almost half of the 202,147 square feet it signed for at 5425 Wisconsin Ave. That will cost Mills a $1.16 million grant from the Maryland Economic Development Assistance Fund and a $470,000 grant from Montgomery County.

‘‘As far as we know, they have a little over 200 full-time employees there and 25 to 50 part-timers,” said Joseph Shapiro, spokesman for the county’s Department of Economic Development. ‘‘They did not hit the 325 number but we don’t have to recover any money because we have never dispersed any funds.”

The story is different for the state, which already cut a check to Mills but is waiting until next month to receive a workforce status report from the company, which faced a Dec. 31 to create the promised 325 jobs.

‘‘We can’t do anything until we get the official report, said Karen Glenn, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development. ‘‘We have remedies where we can claw back our funds.”
Mark S. Ordan, who took over as Mills’ CEO in October, sought to assure the company’s staff of their importance to Brookfield in letter he released after the deal was announced.

‘‘The acquisition of The Mills will mark Brookfield’s entry into the retail real estate market,” Ordan wrote to employees. ‘‘While Brookfield owns more than 100 million square feet of office space, Brookfield does not currently have a North American retail operation and intends The Mills to be a platform for retail real estate growth. We believe that this combination will provide strong opportunities for many members of our team.”

One member of that team sure to benefit is former CEO Laurence Siegel, whose severance deal included a $10.5 million bonus if Mills is sold by the end of this year. Siegel, who became CEO in 1995 after the company went public, is credited with more than tripling the size of the company and expanding overseas.

He is also blamed for Mills’ financial gamble on Meadowlands Xanadu, a 104-acre shopping and entertainment complex in the New Jersey swamps. After vast cost overruns, Mills sold its stake in the project and recorded an asset impairment of up to $655 million for the project.

Forrester awardedD.C. project

Forrester Construction of Rockville has been awarded the Riggs LaSalle Recreation Center in Northeast Washington, D.C. The $8 million project will involve the construction of a new 16,000-square-foot recreation facility equipped with a small splash park and supported by related site work and site infrastructure.

The facility will contain an indoor gymnasium, a multipurpose room, an arts and crafts room, a computer room, an exercise room, a weight room, support office areas and storage spaces.

Commercial real estatenews items may be mailed to: Steve Monroe, The Business Gazette, 1200 Quince Orchard Blvd., Gaithersburg, MD 20878; e-mailed to smonroe@gazette.net; or faxed to301-670-7183.

Under Construction

http://www.gazette.net/images/BusinessGazette/cretoweroaksbg011907b_cmyka.jpg
Rendering courtesy of The Tower Cos. and Lerner Enterprises

This 200,000-square-foot building at 2000 Tower Oaks Blvd. in Rockville is under construction and will become the home for two development companies, The Tower Cos. and Lerner Enteprises. The building is scheduled to be completed in the summer of 2008. Designed as a ‘‘green” building, it is to feature low air pollution and other environmental benefits for workers and is to be powered by 100 percent wind energy.

Frederick County hatches a second business incubator
New space opening next month larger than the first
Friday, Jan. 19, 2007
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by Chuck Jones

Staff Writer

When Frederick County’s first business incubator opened at Hood College two years ago, its office and lab space was filled within six months, and there’s been a list of startups waiting to move in ever since.
That list is now gone, at the Frederick Innovative Technology Center Inc. prepares to open a second, bigger incubator, also in Frederick, Feb. 1.

The new space at 4539 Metropolitan Court is in a building owned by Frederick M⁄M Partnership. The incubator will occupy 11,000 of the building’s 26,000 square feet, said Michael Dailey, the center’s executive director. The space comprises 25 offices and 10 research and development labs, he said.

‘‘When we opened at Hood, available space filled very quickly,” Dailey said. The Hood College incubator covers 10,000 square feet and houses eight onsite companies and 15 ‘‘virtual clients,” businesses that use some of the incubator’s resources but are located elsewhere.

About 40 percent of the new incubator’s space is already leased, Dailey said, and he expects the remaining space to go quickly.

Most of the startups are in the information technology and biotechnology fields, but ‘‘we’ve got different kinds of companies doing different types of things,” he said.

FITCI spent $1.1 million to renovate its new space, Dailey said, and the money came from contributions from the state and private organizations.

‘‘The incubator program has been successful beyond our imaginations,” said Marie G. Keegin, director of the Frederick County Office of Economic Development. ‘‘It’s a proven efficient business strategy for startups.”

Incubators help drive the county’s economy, she said.

‘‘Incubator businesses grow and graduate from the facility, but they typically relocate within 5 miles of the incubator site, so it’s good for the area’s economic development,” she said.

Chris Olson, a Frederick County consultant for the Small Business Development Center, is a big booster of incubators.

‘‘The first months and years are the most difficult for a startup company,” Olson said. ‘‘That’s a time fraught with risk. That’s when you’re building a customer base and developing product. An incubator provides infrastructure that startups need. They have the services and resources, and a whole culture of support an incubator provides.”

The Hood College incubator has been a ‘‘godsend” to BioElectronics Corp., which manufactures electronic healing patches, said Andrew J. Whelan, president, CEO and chairman.

Whelan’s nine-employee company moved into the facility in April and has since moved to the new incubator, where it occupies 1,900 square feet. BioElectronics’ rent is $2,500 per month.

Rent at the incubators starts at $400 per month for a 10-by-12-foot office, Dailey said, and labs start at $1,000 per month.

‘‘We would not have been a success without FITCI,” Whelan said. ‘‘We had all the regular startup struggles, but at FITCI we got customer contacts and purchasing discounts. I liked the help we got. With all the other companies in the same building, we had at our disposal the experience we needed. It was sort of cafeteria style. You got to pick the type of help you needed.”

BioElectronics moved from Hood College to the new offices because ‘‘we were falling all over each other,” Whelan said. ‘‘At Hood, we only had three rooms. We needed more room and a space for inventory. Now we have it.”

Veracity Biotechnology LLC, an 18-month-old research company that develops medicines to treat hepatitis C, rents 375 square feet at the Hood College facility, said Victor E. Buckwold, president. He said the incubator’s labs were the main draw for him.

‘‘My work involves a lot of lab work,” Buckwold said. ‘‘Setting up a lab is difficult and expensive. There’s a lot of paperwork, certifications and buying equipment. FITCI already had a wet lab set up and ready to go. All I had to buy was some specialty equipment.”

Buckwold also likes the outside help the incubator provides.

‘‘It helps fledgling companies like mine to get advice and help with logistics,” he said. ‘‘They help you review your business goals and help with organization. It’s nice to have other people around who are excited about what they are doing. I’m pretty much by myself here” at his company.

Both FITCI incubators provide most of the support services a startup company needs, Dailey said, including high-speed Internet access, telephones, conference rooms, printing services — ‘‘all that you need in an office.”

‘‘These businesses are in the pre-revenue, product-development stage,” he said. ‘‘Most are one-, two-, three-person operations. They haven’t got the $3 million to $5 million in startup capital. We give them the help they need to get up and running.”

According to Dailey, businesses in incubators have an 87.5 percent success rate, far higher than other startups, he said. That also means, however, that not all incubator businesses succeed.

‘‘Some businesses have to close up and leave when they lose their funding,” he said. ‘‘That’s happened to a couple of our clients. Not all of it is final, though. Some just close temporarily and reopen when the money is there again.”

Olson said incubator startups tend to have unconventional capital sources.

‘‘Funding can be a tough gap to bridge,” Olson said. ‘‘Traditional small-business funding doesn’t work with many of these companies. They rely on research grants and venture capital, as well as savings and personal assets.”

Although the two incubators’ companies are involved in information technology and biotechnology, incubators can help other types of businesses, Olson said.

‘‘Incubators don’t all have to be technology-oriented,” he said. ‘‘They could be used for retail, food processing, agriculture. There are a lot of possibilities.”

For FITCI, the possibility for its second incubator is expansion, Dailey said. The new incubator currently occupies 34 percent of the building in which it’s housed, he said, and the landlord has assured FITCI that almost the entire building may be available.

‘‘We may take over the whole building as we grow,” Dailey said. ‘‘The space is available whenever we need it. But we won’t have to make that decision for a couple of years yet.”


Copyright © 2006 The Gazette - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Privacy Statement

http://www.mddailyrecord.com/publications/_pdf/Square%20Feet%2001.12.07.pdf

^^ An awesome link everyone NEEDS to click and read. :yes:

The past imperfect
Structures considered landmarks by many are at risk because they're not quite old enough
By Timothy B. Wheeler
sun reporter
Originally published January 20, 2007
GETTYSBURG, Pa. // Millions of Americans, young and old, have learned about one of the Civil War's decisive battles by filing into the Cyclorama Center here and peering at a huge circular painting depicting the climax of that epic three-day bloodbath.

Yet on a landscape steeped in history, where statues and monuments abound, there is no plaque commemorating the work of this building's renowned architect, Richard Neutra, famous enough in his day to make the cover of Time magazine. In fact, though only 45 years old, the building's days are numbered, as construction proceeds on a new, more commodious visitors center on a less hallowed spot on the battlefield, away from where the fighting raged..





Last month, however, a Virginia-based group calling itself the Recent Past Preservation Network filed suit against the National Park Service, seeking to block the Cyclorama Center's demolition.

"I just think it is too important a building to just throw in the dumpster," says Christine M. French, president of the group.

While Baltimore has been roiled lately by disputes over protecting historic buildings, some dating back to the city's early seaport days, architects and preservationists point out that many noteworthy structures built since World War II aren't even on the radar screen because they are not old enough to be thought of as historic. And, well, they look modern.

On the outskirts of Washington, for example, sits the former Comsat Laboratories, a futuristic-looking aluminum-and-glass structure in Montgomery County. It was designed by another noted architect, Cesar Pelli, for the company that launched the first private telecommunications satellites into orbit.

Neither building has been listed on the National Register for Historic Places, though the Cyclorama Center's historical and architectural significance has been noted. The register, run by the park service, normally does not list any building or place that is less than 50 years old.

But advocates of preserving modern architecture contend that in today's sped-up development environment, many extraordinary structures built in the past 50 years will be lost before they could qualify for official recognition and protection.

"Building cycles are now more like 30 years," says Mary Corbin Sies, an associate professor in American studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. "Something can be easily mown down or bulldozed and paved over without much thought about whether it can have historical significance when it was built in the post-World War II era."

Sies and a colleague, Isabelle Gournay, an associate architecture professor at College Park, have conducted a statewide survey to identify distinctive modern buildings or groups of structures in Maryland that they believe are worthy of preserving. They came up with 18, but say there are many more, and that additional research is needed to document their significance.

Yet in a state colonized nearly 380 years ago, recently built structures often get short shrift.

"Modernism has been popularly depicted as something that really is not very popular," Sies says, "that is very cold, that is alienating and that sort of insists on a kind of design purity that makes it not necessarily amenable to human habitation."

Many of the notable Modern structures built in the Baltimore-Washington corridor are more "down to earth," she says. Custom and tract homes built in some parts of the suburbs were sited and designed to fit into the landscape, and used lots of wood and stone in addition to glass to establish visual connections with the surrounding environment.

"We really use the term 'baby boom Modernism' to summarize the kind of houses and churches and office buildings and shopping centers that went up in post-World War II suburbs," Sies says. "Architects told us that is where the money was, where people were moving."

While some notable Modern structures in the state have been recognized, including Frank Lloyd Wright homes in Baltimore and Bethesda and a Neutra building at St. John's College in Annapolis, the University of Maryland professors' survey highlighted lesser-known sites such as Baltimore's Highfield House condo building, designed by Mies van der Rohe; Goucher College's Towson campus; and several synagogues and churches in the suburbs.

Some exceptional Modern buildings have undergone alterations over the years, Sies says, but few in the state are as important as the Comsat building. She says it is one of the most significant early works by Pelli, an Argentina native who designed Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport as well as some of the world's tallest buildings. His structures often feature curves and metal, and the Comsat building "sort of telegraphed his style," she says.

Wayne Goldstein, president of Montgomery Preservation, a local group seeking to save the Comsat building, says the structure symbolizes the dawning of the space age, putting it on a par with the 19th-century log cabin in Rockville that was once home to Josiah Henson - the slave whose 1849 autobiography was the model for Harriet Beecher Stowe's classic novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin.

"It is, in its own way, as important as Uncle Tom's Cabin because of its contributions to science and culture," says Goldstein.

Until this month, the COMSAT building appeared in jeopardy. LCOR Inc., the Pennsylvania-based company that now owns it, announced its intention to demolish the structure so the 200-acre campus on which it sits could be redeveloped.

Preservationists rallied to save the building, organizing a design "charette" last summer to air ideas for building around the existing structure. The event even drew the elderly Pelli, who said he opposed tearing down his creation.

After months of talks, the developer and preservationists reached a compromise this month. LCOR pledged to retain the architecturally significant core of the Comsat building - its glass corridors and aluminum-skinned wings - while demolishing the cafeteria, warehouse and support space. The company plans to build 1,500 new homes, office buildings and stores on the site. The retained portion of the Comsat building would be donated to the county for community use.

"We are really keeping, I think, the most important elements of his design intact in a very visible location," said Michael J. Smith, an LCOR vice president,





The future is less hopeful for the Cyclorama Center, which garnered widespread praise for its innovative design when it opened in 1962. The building consists of a low office and museum wing attached to a huge round auditorium set on "spider legs," L-shaped beams that were one of the architect's design signatures.

Park service officials have said the building has outlived its usefulness and needs to go. The building's removal is part of a larger plan to make the nearly 6,000--acre battlefield park more closely resemble the landscape where two great armies clashed 143 years ago. It sits on Cemetery Ridge near Ziegler's Grove, where Union troops beat back the Rebels' final attack, popularly known as Pickett's Charge.

The huge painting the building houses, a 19th-century version of the IMAX created by Frenchman Paul Philippoteaux, already has been taken down and is undergoing a painstaking, $11.5 million restoration before being moved to the new visitors' center sometime this year.

The painting, 359 feet long and 27 feet high, suffered serious degradation while hanging in the Cyclorama building, says Dru Anne Neil, communications director for the Gettysburg Foundation. The canvas was pulling apart because it was hung improperly, and fluctuations in humidity and temperature added to the stress.

The new $39 million visitors' center, being built in a partnership between the foundation and the park service, would enable the painting to be hung properly and even restored to its original size, some 365 feet by 42 feet.

Katie Lawhon, a park service spokeswoman, declined to discuss the fate of the Cyclorama because of the lawsuit. But officials have said before that the building was too small to handle the 1.8 million visitors a year and lacked proper climate controls and display space for all the exhibits.

Christine French, of the Recent Past Preservation Network and herself a former park service employee, calls the government's stance "misguided."

She says Neutra (pronounced NOY-tra), an Austrian native who died in 1970, was a master of Modern design, and the Cyclorama building one of his most significant works.

French contends the building has historic significance - though of a more recent type than the battlefield itself - because it was one of the first visitors' centers erected in national parks to handle the surge in attendance that began after the Second World War.

"Her group is fighting to raise awareness that such notable Modern buildings are "essentially American and should be protected."

David Woodcock, a professor of architecture at Texas A&M University and a member of the historic preservation committee of the American Institute of Architects, says the Cyclorama dispute is a particularly tough call. The park service did hire leading architects of the time such as Neutra to design a batch of new visitors centers in the 1950s and 1960s.

"The idea was that federal architecture should represent the best of who we are at the time," he says. Yet buildings are more than artistic expressions, he notes.

"You really would not want to throw a symphony away," he says. "On the other hand, buildings are not music. They do have a life. They have to be useful and meet contemporary needs."

If Wayne and Candace Malone's reaction is any guide, the public is just as conflicted. The couple dropped by the park one chilly day in December on a day trip from their home in Fort Loudon, Pa.

"We would like to keep the building," Wayne Malone says when informed it was designed by a famous architect. His wife recalls its opening and says the structure had struck her then as "very different and Modern."

But when told that a new visitors center was under construction, and that officials had said the painting was to be moved there because it could be better preserved and displayed there, Wayne Malone says: "I do not have a problem with it."

tim.wheeler@baltsun.com
To see a list of architecturally significant, Modern structures in the state, go to: www.baltimoresun.com/preserve.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/media/photo/2007-01/27473803.jpg
Architect Cesar Pelli designed the Comsat building, a futuristic looking aluminum-and-glass structure in Montgomery County.
(Sun photo by Doug Kapustin)
Dec 20, 2006

^^ ^^ Uncle Tom's Cabin mentioned in the previous article is actually in North Bethesda off Old Georgetown Road. I think North Bethesda is the bitch city that people either call Bethesda or Rockville depending on their mood. :ohno:

^^ ^^ Uncle Tom's Cabin mentioned in the previous article is actually in North Bethesda off Old Georgetown Road. I think North Bethesda is the bitch city that people either call Bethesda or Rockville depending on their mood. :ohno:

Dude postal code-wise, it's rockville.

Dude postal code-wise, it's rockville.

Postal code wise, Tysons Corner and North Bethesda don't exist. But here in the non-postal code world we know they do.

Yeah but don't complain about it:lol:

They never say "Maryland's Biotech industry" through out the entire seven page article. It only mentions "the regions biotech industry" when all the firms they talked about were from Maryland, what gives?

Why can't articles and publications like these just acknowledge the fact that the Biotech Industry is solely a Maryland phenomenon?

We worked hard for it! It's funny how every time something good comes along for Maryland suddenly we become a "region" and the other jurisdictions want to stick their hands in the cookie jar.

The reporter, Vandana Sinha always puts a negative spin on articles about Maryland (the very few that come through).

Outside that the article speaks of the hard struggles biotechs go through. It can really build state loyalty especially through the grants and incubator help.

Under the microscope

Getting a drug from the lab to the shelf can take decades. Biotech's slow pace makes for a painful, but potentially lucrative, industry. Companies that endure are true survivors.

Washington Business Journal - January 19, 2007by Vandana Sinha Staff Reporter


If only time were indeed money, biotech would be a much easier business.

But in the biotech industry's unavoidably slow crawl from lab table to pharmacy shelves -- typically a decade-long pilgrimage -- finding money tops its list of the most Herculean tasks.


Some companies score multimillion-dollar venture capital deals or have king-sized IPOs to soothe the pain of

$150 million annual bills -- the equivalent of more than 450 top-of-the-line Lamborghinis.

But consider them the fortunate few.

In the shadows of those splashy deals, the overwhelming majority of company founders scrimp, sacrifice and fish underneath figurative cushions to keep the lights on -- all to sculpt biotechnology they passionately believe could help society heal. And the siren song of a blockbuster drug's billion-dollar payoff doesn't hurt either.

The earlier the stage, the tougher the struggle. Biotechs have everything to prove and little to show, making uncertainty the only constant. In the end, their leaders stake careers and life savings on the impulses of the planet's teensiest fragments: cells, proteins and particles the width of 1/100,000th of a human hair.

"That's the standard operating procedure for biotech companies before the clinical stage," says Ed Rudnic, founder and CEO of Advancis Pharmaceutical, which in seven years raised nearly $155 million in seven rounds of venture capital and an IPO.

Advancis began in 1999 as a business plan Rudnic wrote and rewrote after leaving a seven-figure post-merger stock option plan at Shire, a U.K.-based pharmaceutical giant that bought his former employer. Unemployed but inspired, he consulted and prepared expert testimony in federal regulatory cases from his basement office in return for intermittent checks that paid for his research and supplies until he got his first $1 million shot of funding.

Even today, not much money is making the rounds. Since June 2005, Baltimore-based New Enterprise Associates counts 220 biotech venture deals along the East Coast, from New England to North Carolina. Venture capital leaders spotted roughly 35 regional biotech financing deals last year.

And yet, a whopping 200-plus biotech-related companies reside in Montgomery County alone.

"They live day-to-day and struggle with grants and angel money and personal investments. It's tough," says Jim Barrett, a general partner at New Enterprise Associates. "God bless them. We admire those folks."

BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY
In the world of pricey preclinical research, a company must make money any way it can. Even if it means selling a service completely unrelated to its core business.

"That can be distracting," admits Richard Garr.

In the world of Neuralstem, the company Garr co-founded, that was the supreme understatement. Unfortunately, only the wisdom of hindsight could tell him that.


More than a decade ago, Garr, a commercial real estate attorney whose preschool son was diagnosed with a brain tumor, went to a school function for his boy. He was quickly introduced to the father of one of his son's school friends: Karl Johe, a National Institutes of Health stem-cell scientist who'd been thinking the technology's best chance for success lay in the private sector.

About a year later, in May 1996, they set up shop in Garr's Potomac home. Two years after that, the two secured space at an incubator in College Park.

Within the first five years, they had a taste of success.

Neuralstem had pocketed angel funding from Garr's old commercial real estate contacts -- as well as $500,000 from the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development and $5 million in equity funding from Gene Logic, which also awarded the smaller company a $7.5 million, three-year service contract to produce stem cells for its own projects. Neuralstem had picked up another stem-cell-producing, $10 million, two-phase contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa).

Neither contract spoke to Neuralstem's core stem-cell transplant work. But to fulfill them, the company doubled its head count each year, swelling to 60 people in new 20,000-square-foot Gaithersburg digs. Garr was even in talks with two Wall Street firms to rustle up

$50 million as baby steps toward an IPO.

Just as quickly, though, the taste of success turned considerably more bitter than sweet.

By 2001, the second, $7.5 million phase of Darpa's contract was nowhere to be seen. For two years, Neuralstem called every month, watching in that time the genomics market wane and the technology market bust. Watching attention on stem cells slacken from the Defense Department because of terrorist attacks and renew from senators because of proposed bans. Watching its own work get charred after years on the back burner.

And in that time, Garr and Johe were forced to shave off still more core projects from their budget, sublease all but 5,000 square feet of their space and take partial salaries.

Then in 2003, the official Darpa Dear John letter came. The contract had died, and with it, Neuralstem's grand financing plans. That year, the company couldn't even muster up $463 for property taxes.


It no longer needed employees, all laid off in three rounds until only Garr and Johe were left, sans salaries for another two years. It didn't need office space, so it moved into a Rockville incubator in 2004.

It was round two at square one. But this time, Garr says, they were going to focus solely on their technology.

"Ultimately we knew nothing ever happened to the science to slow it down or say it didn't work," Garr says. "The hiccups were a function of the business cycle, not a function of the science."

Today, the six-person company cautiously contracts out everything. A half-dozen universities test its technology using their grant money, while it pocketed its own $500,000 NIH grant.

Early last year, Neuralstem rallied after winning a patent dispute to raise $5 million from private investors, leading to a quiet IPO on the over-the-counter bulletin board in December. Last week it inked a deal to license its compounds to a Massachusetts company developing a diabetes drug.

And 11 years after starting up the company, Garr and Johe plan to file with federal regulators this year to begin their first clinical trials of a paralysis treatment.

"It's an all-encompassing, all-involving, wrenching process," Garr says. "If you're doing it just for the money, you're not going to do it."

THE SURVIVOR
In a town where drivers can see green fields greeting gray skies and where a farmhouse is a rolling hill or two away from its main high school, Judith Kelleher-Ander*sson carefully placed her professional hopes and dreams in a petri dish.

Just 12 months prior, in December 2003, she had survived the third employer to initiate mass layoffs or come close to it. At each of the three, and as a consultant since, she had built new stem-cell drug discovery programs.

It didn't take her long to realize she could do it on her own.


In May 2004, she founded Neuronascent, using a nearby Clarksville P.O. box as her new corporate placeholder.

With some consulting dollars in her back pocket, she attended every networking event she could afford. At a particularly stimulating microbiology research association boot camp, she sat near a fellow founder of a stem-cell services company, Lifeline Cell Technology, which had a desk to spare in its two-room, two-lab Walkersville space -- nearly 50 miles from her Columbia house.

By that December, she had moved in.

She's since settled into that desk, fronting a row of cubicles in a room nearly as big as a two-car garage. A former TV repair shop in a small shopping strip, the space is mostly consumed by its two labs. Even Lifeline CEO Jeffrey Janus graciously shares his small office with a copier-size microscope-and-camera contraption that Kelleher-Andersson bought on a five-year financing plan.

She and Lifeline split everything, from freezers and cell-culture incubators down to Scotch tape and staplers, helping her bottle her spending. What she does buy, she only buys through online auctions (think eBay for biotech) where anything from Unix servers to lab autoclaves are available for a tenth of their normal prices.

When she needed to conduct animal testing, she rented time slots at Biocon's Rockville lab. When she needed help in her own lab, she hired a Shepherd University biology senior as a part-time intern.

"I'm not doing great things for the Maryland economy for now," she concedes with a laugh that punctuates many of her sentences. "But if I take these shortcuts, I'll live longer so I can grow as a company."

Her most important expenditure has been $20,000, about half of her initial Maryland Technology Development Corp. grant, on 96 specific combinations of neurons that she's praying will be the key to protecting humans from diseases such as Alzheimer's or from strokes.

As she tests her neuron compounds to see if she's right, she also ends up contracting out other services for an average $30,000 in annual revenues to pay off expenses. She spends the rest of her time writing grants, a practice even the staunchest of biotech followers say is a tough sell.

No one need tell her that. Three times in two years, she spent nights and weekends writing a 25-page application for a $150,000 grant from an aging institute for her Alzheimer's work. Three times, she attended institute conferences. Twice, she wrote articles for the institute's journal. Once, the annual meeting's topic was even based on her previous year's talk.


And yet, for the third time, around the 2005 holidays no less, she opened her inbox to the now-familiar terse e-mail rejection. That disappointment still stings today, though she did win a geriatrician investor in the process.

Now she's hunting for more like him. She says $500,000 will tide over Neuronascent until a new corporate partner can help pick up the clinical tab.

Kelleher-Andersson, who for three years hasn't earned a salary and until a few months ago trekked the Beltway in a 1998 Chevrolet Malibu boasting 180,000 miles, is still a long way away from giving up.

"You can keep things going for a long time. But that's not success, that's surviving," she says. "I'm still in surviving mode."

PENNIES FROM HEAVEN
Two days remained of Peter Levine's business trip to Argentina when he got the phone call.

The government litigator-turned-foreign investment entrepreneur was in talks with Las Vegas investors, sizing up the South American country for slot machines.

On the phone was Ben Hitt, the husband of his wife's friend whom he met over brunch one day. Hitt was a Raytheon scientist who had spent years conceiving, and a recent weekend finalizing, a biomarker algorithm that could detect cancer well before its first assault.

In that phone call, Hitt reported that a wealthy sister of an old hometown buddy stood ready to cut them their first $500,000 check as an angel investor -- "an angel in the true sense of the word," Levine says.

It didn't take those last two days for him to decide his next move. He dissolved his investment consulting business and devoted his life in October 2000 to this fledgling idea called Correlogic Systems.

Little did he know how true the words "devote" and "life" would become.


Levine started out with a "subsistence-level" salary and a rented Bethesda business address. He worked out of his Potomac home, and Hitt, having left Raytheon, out of his home in Severn, Md. The two turned their family rooms into conference rooms and paid tens of thousands of their own dollars for patent lawyers and filing fees.

They were determined to nurse that first $500,000 through 2001. The key to more funds, they calculated, was getting their work published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. But two years of pursuit, supported by scientists from the Food and Drug Administration and the National Cancer Institute, only won the company back-to-back rejections.

After packing four employees in a tiny Bethesda office and still watching its cash line dip into grim status, Levine, a serial entrepreneur, says he made one of the most difficult decisions of his life, one he'd probably never repeat: He and his wife took out a $200,000 line of personal credit, putting their own assets up as collateral.

"One, I still believed in what we were doing," he says. "And two, I just didn't want to let it go. Basically it would be work that, for the last year and a half, would be for naught. I had a strong belief we would prevail."

A few uneasy months later, his belief -- and his personal bet -- bore fruit.

The Lancet medical journal accepted Correlogic's study on ovarian cancer for publication in February 2002. It went from there to the front page of The New York Times. Suddenly, there were Levine and Hitt, being interviewed on CBS Evening News and walking down a hallway on NBC Nightly News.

In the next four years, that publication did indeed lead to more publications. And funding. The company has rounded up more than $2.1 million, more than half from a Las Vegas physician group with ties to those same investors from Levine's last corporate life.

And the attention yielded two more phone calls of significance, this time from two top national labs, Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp, asking to license the five-employee company's biomarker technology.

Armed with new revenues and 17 employees, Correlogic in August shifted into the second floor of a new Rockville building. The company found its furniture through shopping bargains, and the stunning photographs of sunset-lit beaches and colorful butterflies adorning its curved walls were snapped by none other than staffers themselves, enlarged at Costco and fitted into frames on sale at Michaels.

The bulk of Correlogic's finances are fixed on its first product entering clinical trials and pending FDA approval: OvaCheck, a blood test to detect ovarian cancer. Correlogic only succeeds as a company, Levine says, when OvaCheck succeeds in the market.


"There's a period when I wake up literally every night at 2 in the morning, worried about money, worried about technology, worried about the FDA, worried about key employees. Just worried," Levine says. "Money doesn't solve all of those worries. But the worry about money is the most pervasive because it does go to how long the runway is to market."

And all along that runway, Levine can only stare at the sole piece of art above his desk: A Sisyphean man in business attire pushing a giant black ball up a glass corporate building.

_____
2007: Make-or-break year
Of the area's 300 or so biotechs, some of the biggest will brave their most significant turning points this year. Some are leaner and meaner, while others are banking on new meds and new leadership.

While some consider this year's stepped-up activity evidence of a maturing market -- hardly a coincidence considering the millions of dollars pumped into it in recent years -- others wonder whether that maturation will lead to more marriages in 2007.

"We saw a lot of M&A activity last year in a lot of industries. The question is, when will that trend, if ever, come to this industry?" says Rene Salas, mid-Atlantic life sciences leader for Ernst & Young, noting that larger national pharmaceuticals are now increasingly on the hunt to add to their pipelines. "Is this year the year that that would change?"

And here's more of what's in store for the region's biggest biotech players this year:

MedImmune (Nasdaq: MEDI)
Home: Gaithersburg
Founded: 1987
The numbers: $748.1 million in revenues and $72 million net loss for the first nine months of 2006

Top executive: Wayne Hockmeyer, founder and chairman; David Mott, president, CEO and vice chairman
Products on market: Synagis for pediatric lower respiratory tract disease; Ethyol for radiation treatment; FluMist for the flu
Last year: Sold off its first-ever product, Cytogam, and licensed the rights to a few more drugs. Plus, the company got into the cell-culture-based vaccine business, breaking ground on a $250 million manufacturing plant in Frederick.
This year: Got approval to launch liquid nasal flu spray by the fall, but will hear by May whether it can offer it to children as young as 1. It's submitting a request to sell Numax, its new-and-improved heir apparent to Synagis.
Diagnosis: With its new liquid FluMist touted as its savior, MedImmune prays for a passing-grade on this next market launch -- compared with its failing one on FluMist four years ago -- since antsy shareholders are tired of watching a flat stock.


Human Genome Sciences (Nasdaq: HGSI)
Home: Rockville
Founded: 1992

The numbers: $15.7 million in revenues and $184.2 million in net loss for the first nine months of 2006
Top executive: Thomas Watkins, president and CEO
Products on market: None as of yet
Last year: In the last few days of the year, HGS pushed its first drug, Albuferon, a chronic hepatitis C treatment, into its final phase of testing.
This year: In the first few days of this year, it will start dosing patients in its second Phase III trials, this time for LymphoStat, a lupus treatment. Both trials should last all of 2007.
Diagnosis: Until December's end, HGS was one of the oldest, richest and largest biotechs without a drug in late-stage testing -- and dollars spent years ago on expensive artwork in its splashy new 635,000-square-foot digs surely didn't help matters.


Advancis Pharmaceutical (Nasdaq: AVNC)
Home: Germantown
Founded: 1999

The numbers: $3.5 million in revenues and $28.2 million in net loss for the first nine months of 2006
Top executive: Edward Rudnic, president and CEO
Products on market: Keflex
Last year: High point: Nailed successful Phase III results for strep throat treatment Amoxicillin Pulsys, which failed the previous year. Low point: Judge ruled that the company's name infringes upon sanofi-aventis.
This year: Should get approval for and launch Amoxicillin, its first brainchild on the market.
Diagnosis: With a happy ending so far, Advancis next gets tested by the market. Though look for it under a different moniker then, BuyUsPleez perhaps?


Digene (Nasdaq: DIGE)
Home: Gaithersburg
Founded: 1990

The numbers: $128.6 million in revenues and $9.3 million in net income for the first nine months of 2006
Top executive: Daryl Faulkner, president and CEO
Products on market: Digene HPV Test
Last year: Longtime leaders Evan Jones and Charles Fleischman stepped down after 16 years, making way for successor Faulkner, formerly of Invitrogen, a large biotech with a manufacturing division in Frederick.
This year: It plans for more profits.
Diagnosis: Faulkner, who went from being a retired senior vice president to the top job of one of the area's only profitable companies, has big shoes to fill. But Jones, still company chairman, will no doubt help ease him in.


Gene Logic (Nasdaq: GLGC)
Home: Gaithersburg
Founded: 1994

The numbers: $17.1 million in revenues and $49.7 million in net loss for the first nine months of 2006
Top executive: Mark Gessler, president and CEO
Products on market: ToxExpress program, BioExpress program, Ascenta system, Sciantis system
Last year: After undergoing a strategic review, the company closed its 16,400-square-foot Gaithersburg lab space, laid off more than 80 people from its genomics division and sold its preclinical division for $15 million.
This year: Now a leaner company, Gene Logic still expects no revenues from its drug repositioning division and fewer revenues from its genomics division in 2007.
Diagnosis: Will Gene Logic's cutbacks help one of the area's largest biotech companies survive and thrive?


GenVec (Nasdaq: GNVC)
Home: Gaithersburg
Founded: 1992

The numbers: $15.4 million in revenues and $13.5 million net loss for the first nine months of 2006
Top executive: Paul Fischer, president and CEO
Products on market: None as of yet
Last year: Pushed its HIV vaccine through human clinical trials at NIH's Vaccine Research Center, and saw good signs from TNFerade Phase II/III clinical tests for pancreatic cancer.
This year: Late-stage testing for TNFerade continues, and those early results suggest the company could wrap up the trial sooner than expected.
Diagnosis: The company got a boost at the end of 2006 with positive results so far from its late-stage pancreatic cancer trials, and is entering 2007 with some extra cash from a $19.7 million direct offering.


MacroGenics (private)
Home: Rockville
Founded: 2000

The numbers: Declined to disclose
Top executive: Scott Koenig, president and CEO
Products on market: None as of yet
Last year: The company scored its latest round of venture capital with $45 million, putting it on track to start Phase III trials of its juvenile diabetes drug.
This year: Started 2007 with $2 million in backing from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation to fund those drug trials for type 1 diabetes, which just happens to be one of the most lucrative markets.
Diagnosis: Think debutante season. If the markets cooperate this year, the private company is getting gussied up to debut as a public company.


Nabi Biopharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: NABI)
Home: R&D facility in Rockville
Founded: 1967 (in Boca Raton, Fla.)

The numbers: $59.5 million in revenues and $54.7 million in net loss for the first nine months of 2006
Top executive: Thomas McLain, chairman, president and CEO
Products on market: Nabi-HB for hepatitis B, and Aloprim for oncology patients
Last year: Sold off its PhosLo franchise to cut costs, but major shareholders still spent much of 2006 battling for control of the company because of its weak share price.
This year: Plans to make its second attempt at late-stage clinical trials for StaphVax, a staph infection treatment that failed its first attempt in 2005, plus it hopes to take its popular NicVax into Phase III trials this year.
Diagnosis: The company's on slippery footing with its major shareholders, who are watching these next clinical tests -- and its stock price -- closely.


Prestwick Pharmaceuticals (private)
Home: D.C.
Founded: 2002

The numbers: Declined to disclose
Top executive: George Horner III, president and CEO
Products on market: None in the U.S.
Last year: Nailed a $60 million venture capital deal, half of which is subject to hitting certain regulatory milestones. Soon after, it hired a new CEO.
This year: It hired that new CEO in order to go public, so count this one as another market-watcher this year. Plus, the FDA has called its lead drug, tetrabenazine for Huntington's Disease, "approvable," but it's still awaiting the final regulatory nod this year.
Diagnosis: If a potential IPO and new drug on the U.S. market actually pan out, this year could be the defining year for the company so far.


Sucampo Pharmaceuticals (private)
Home: Bethesda
Founded: 1996

The numbers: $38.6 million in net revenues and $7.8 million in net profits for the first nine months of 2006
Top executives: Sachiko Kuno, president, chairwoman, co-founder; Ryuji Ueno, CEO, chief scientific officer, co-founder, board director
Products on market: Amitiza for adult chronic constipation
Last year: Filed to go public
This year: Seating a 25-year veteran in the CFO slot barely two weeks ago, it's focused on going public, filing to trade as "SCMP" on the NASDAQ this year.
Diagnosis: It stands as one of the area's few profitable companies -- luckily, there's no shortage of embarrassing illnesses, from constipation to irritable bowel syndrome.


Vanda Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: VNDA)
Home: Rockville
Founded: 2003

The numbers: Made no revenues and $51.6 million in net loss for the first nine months of 2006
Top executive: Mihael Polymeropoulos, CEO
Products on market: None as of yet
Last year: Had one of 2006's few successful IPOs, and is fresh off of two positive Phase III trial results for drugs treating insomnia and schizophrenia.
This year: While it will continue testing its insomnia drug, it will file by the end of the year to take its schizophrenia drug to market.
Diagnosis: In four years, Vanda has gone public, plans to take its first drug to market and turns into a tempting acquisition target. It'll probably need a nap itself.

________
Local life sciences funding groups

Anthem Capital Management: This Baltimore VC firm serves the mid-Atlantic area only and invests an average $3 million.
Boulder Ventures: This Colorado firm, which has an office in Owings Mills, Md., invests about a fifth of its fund in life sciences.
The Carlyle Group: With headquarters in D.C., this firm manages nearly $47 billion, some invested in health care services.
Chesapeake Emerging Opportunities Club: This angel network starts off with an average $175,000 investment.
Emerging Technology Partners: This Rockville group will fund companies from early to late stage.
Grotech Capital Group: Managers of this roughly $1 billion fund look for health care services and medical product firms.
In-Q-Tel: This CIA spinoff pumps money into nation-securing biotech and nanotech.
Maryland Technology Development Corp.: Boasting seven funding arms, the state-funded group has given 39 young tech and biotech companies nearly $2.2 million.
Maryland Venture Fund: Forty percent of the state's seed fund goes toward drug, diagnostic and device companies.
MdBio Foundation: This private nonprofit arm of MdBio has awarded more than $4 million to 32 biotech companies.
MedImmune Ventures: This venture capital arm of MedImmune doles out an average $7 million per company.
New Enterprise Associates: NEA manages roughly
$8.5 billion, narrowing in on biopharmaceutical, medical device and health care services companies.

New Markets Growth Fund: This early-stage fund searches for biotech and tech companies needing $500,000 or more.
Questmark Partners: Split in two funds totaling $450 million, this Baltimore firm is most interested in late-stage medical device companies.
Red Abbey Venture Partners: This firm reserves its $50 million fund strictly for biotechs making drugs, devices and diagnostic tools.
Toucan Capital: This $120 million fund flows mostly toward early-stage mid-Atlantic drug companies.
Washington Dinner Club: This group has invested up to
$1 million each in a half-dozen companies.

E-MAIL: VSINHA@BIZJOURNALS.COM PHONE: 703/258-0838

Bozzuto tapped to develop Silver Spring project
Baltimore Business Journal - 2:12 PM EST Mondayby Daniel J. SernovitzStaff

Greenbelt developer the Bozzuto Group, a prominent builder in the Baltimore area, has been picked to develop a 3.24-acre residential, retail and office project in Silver Spring in partnership with Montgomery County officials.

Montgomery County officials with the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission picked Bozzuto and two other groups to develop the downtown Silver Spring site, which will include 358 residential units, retail space, a nine-story, 120,000-square-foot headquarters for the Park and Planning Commission, a 150,000-square-foot office building and a public plaza.


Bozzuto has developed several properties in the Baltimore region, and is working on a plan to build a $58 million apartment and retail complex on property at Mt. Royal Avenue and Oliver Street owned by the University of Baltimore. The property is now the site of the university's Bolton Yards parking lot.

Bozzuto will be partnering with Spaulding and Slye Investments and Harrison Development on the project, to be called SilverPlace. A groundbreaking is scheduled for 2008, and occupancy of the new Park and Planning Commission headquarters could begin in 2010.

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B'ville Flips GMS To Oldies & Fires Staff, WETA-FM To Go Classical - 1/22 - At 3 PM Monday, Bonneville flipped classical WGMS (104.1 and 103.9) to a "whatever we want" to play "Jack-like" 1970s and 1980s eclectic pop and rock oldies format as "George 104" with a website at george104.com. With "104 straight days" of no ads. With the WXGG calls. Bonneville has been negotiating to sell WGMS to Redskins owner Dan Snyder for his Triple X ESPN Sports talker. Apparently, that deal has been "sidelined." Also, we're hearing that NPR news talker WETA-FM, 90.9, will pick up WGMS's classical format at 8 PM Monday. Bonneville has donated its 15,000-disc library of classical recordings, and gives the public non-commercial station the WGMS call letters. WETA plans to use the WGMS identity on its 89.1 Hagerstown (currently WETH) simulcast frequency. The DC Biz Journal reports that almost a dozen WGMS employees were let go Monday, including its entire on-air staff, which included longtime personalities such as John Chester, James Bartel, Diana Hollander, Renee Chaney, and Chip Brienza. WGMS began cutting back its sales staff last month. Several employees were also fired at WETA-FM. The audio of the GMS-to-George format flip is available via our sister site VARTV (WMA).....

I AM ANXIOUS TO KNOW!!! What could it be???

- The Four Seasons expansion?

- The Duke Realty Development at the old GM site

- A financial firm expansion?

- Something we haven't heard before like a fortune 500 drug company on its way over?

I must say if this is for real and continues a trend, Baltimore has definitely reached a turning point.

BDC goes behind closed doors to discuss 'large company'

Baltimore Business Journal - 11:34 AM EST Thursdayby Daniel J. SernovitzStaff

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The Baltimore Development Corp., at its third board meeting following a court requirement it open its doors to the public, spent the majority of its two-hour meeting Thursday morning behind closed doors.

Board Chairman Arnold L. Williams, following the meeting, said the closed-door session concerned a significant number of jobs in Baltimore, but he would not say whether they would be generated by a company interested in moving into the city, moving out of Baltimore, or thinking about expanding its presence here.


"It's really about increasing the number of jobs in Baltimore," Williams said.

The Maryland Court of Appeals ruled in November that the city's economic development arm must comply with the state's open meeting and record laws. The board held its first public meeting later that month.

In December, the board held a brief public session before recessing into executive session. Williams disclosed after the session ended that the board had voted to award a city redevelopment project in the Carroll Camden section of the city to a group of developers linked to Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis.

At its meeting Thursday morning, the board spent about 30 minutes going over routine items, such as the minutes from its last meeting, before projects committee Chairwoman Deborah Hunt Devan asked for a closed-door session to talk about an unidentified company's finances. Devan said the company had approached the development corporation to discuss a proposal, and board members needed to talk in private about the financial implications of the deal.

That discussion lasted another 90 minutes, and the meeting had ended by the time board members opened the doors to the meeting room again. Details about the company or what it has asked the BDC to do were not disclosed.

BDC President M.J. "Jay" Brodie, when asked whether the business was a private or publicly held company, would only say: "I don't mind saying it's a large company."

Williams said the board members need to consider more aspects of the proposal, and the board could be ready to vote on the matter at its March 22 meeting.

"This was starting discussion about what's coming, and we're not prepared [to vote], we have to do some more work," he said.

Bethesda bank to lease space in East Coast Wal-Marts
Washington Business Journal - 4:35 PM EST Thursdayby Adam BrecherResearch Director
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Investor Robert Johnson's Urban Trust Bank has entered into an agreement to put its branches in Wal-Mart stores in the Washington area and beyond.

The Bethesda-based bank's majority owner is RLJ Cos., controlled by Johnson, the former chairman of Black Entertainment Television (BET).

Urban Trust Bank signed a master agreement to lease space in Wal-Marts up and down the Eastern seaboard. The first branches will open in the Washington area and Orlando, Fla. Atlanta is being pegged as the next market.

At this point, the number of Wal-Mart stores (NYSE: WMT) with Urban Trust branches hasn't been decided, but it will be "fairly significant," says the bank's CEO, Dwight Bush.

The bank is "committed to supporting urban consumers," Bush says, and "the demographics of Wal-Mart customers and associates fits our sweet spot."

Urban Trust plans to open the first local Wal-Mart branches by the end of the year.

Bethesda bank to lease space in East Coast Wal-Marts
Washington Business Journal - 4:35 PM EST Thursdayby Adam BrecherResearch Director
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Investor Robert Johnson's Urban Trust Bank has entered into an agreement to put its branches in Wal-Mart stores in the Washington area and beyond.

The Bethesda-based bank's majority owner is RLJ Cos., controlled by Johnson, the former chairman of Black Entertainment Television (BET).

Urban Trust Bank signed a master agreement to lease space in Wal-Marts up and down the Eastern seaboard. The first branches will open in the Washington area and Orlando, Fla. Atlanta is being pegged as the next market.

At this point, the number of Wal-Mart stores (NYSE: WMT) with Urban Trust branches hasn't been decided, but it will be "fairly significant," says the bank's CEO, Dwight Bush.

The bank is "committed to supporting urban consumers," Bush says, and "the demographics of Wal-Mart customers and associates fits our sweet spot."

Urban Trust plans to open the first local Wal-Mart branches by the end of the year.

Now if only we had Walmarts in Montgomery County...

Now if only we had Walmarts in Montgomery County...

LOL! True! We have ONE in Germantown, then the county passed that Wal-Mart bill not allowing stores 100,000 sq/ft or larger. That's why we don't have any Wegmans too.

LOL! True! We have ONE in Germantown, then the county passed that Wal-Mart bill not allowing stores 100,000 sq/ft or larger. That's why we don't have any Wegmans too.

We still have 2 Targets and I think there's a KMart in Aspen Hill.

What's that?


Edenwald is a retirement home, the orginal is, IIRC a 23 story tower, the expansion is 15. Its across from the towson town center.

We still have 2 Targets and I think there's a KMart in Aspen Hill.

We have FIVE Targets and that's enough imo. There is also a K-mart in the Kentlands.

Targets
1) Silver Spring - Fairland/Route 29 cooridor.
2) Rockville Pike
3) Germantown
4) Gaithersburg - Washingtonian (urban type)
5) Wheaton Mall

Now for the Best Buy's?

We have FIVE Targets and that's enough imo. There is also a K-mart in the Kentlands.

Targets
1) Silver Spring - Fairland/Route 29 cooridor.
2) Rockville Pike
3) Germantown
4) Gaithersburg - Washingtonian (urban type)
5) Wheaton Mall

Now for the Best Buy's?

I only knew about 2 and 4. :dunno:

Cumberland’s ‘Rock’ set for a $31 million facelift
JEN DEGREGORIO
Daily Record Business Writer
January 28, 2007 7:28 PM
Car racing enthusiasts and fans of a host of motor sports would flock to Cumberland if the city built a $31 million racing complex, according to a new feasibility study for the proposed project.

Allegany County two years ago began looking into expanding its Speedway facility in Cumberland, a small, dirt racetrack on a 155-acre, county-owned property also known as “The Rock.” The county now has a master plan for a sprawling complex that would include upgrades to The Rock and tracks for drag racing, go-carts and biking. The project’s centerpiece would be a two-mile, paved racing path that would serve professional and amateur car racing. The Maryland Stadium Authority commissioned the study and master plan on behalf of Allegany County.

Proponents say the new sports park will lure new investment and tourism to Western Maryland. According to the feasibility study, the project would create 270 jobs and $728,000 in taxes each year to the county and state.

“I think this will be a big draw; this would be a good business,” said Barbara Buehl, executive director of the Allegany County Chamber of Commerce. “It’s not just geared for tourists to come; it’s something our community will be involved in and will enjoy.”

The area planned for the Allegany Motor Sports Complex has a racing history that dates to 1924, when it was used for horse racing, an activity that has since ceased. Some of the area’s historic buildings and structures will get makeovers as part of the motor sports project. The original fairgrounds entrance will be restored, while the old Jockey Club will be used for box seating and catered events. Additional parking and a new road will be constructed to help traffic flow.

The project would be funded by a combination of private and public dollars, according to Buehl. The next step is for the county to begin marketing the project to potential investors. NASCAR racing would not be a likely player at the new track, but various other professional racing circuits could be part of the mix.

“I’m hoping that it’s something that is going to be supportive to the community and fuel the economic engine,” said John Felton, whose group National Road Auto Sport hosts car races at the Cumberland Regional Airport. “Basically it’s going to attract people to our community, and while they’re here they’re apt to stay in hotels, go to restaurants.”

Felton has seen interest in racing skyrocket during the last few years, with competitors and onlookers traveling from out of state to attend his events.

“We’ve seen our events grow from a privately invited 16 to 18 cars to a sold-out field with 100 participants per event weekend,” he said. “We’ve seen that people are willing to come from outside our community to participate in motor sports events.”

When Allegany County was first looking into expanding The Rock, amateur racer Larry Judd collected more than 3,000 signatures from racers to encourage the Maryland Stadium Authority to conduct a feasibility study.

“We do have people that have interest and would race at this race facility if someone would put one in,” Judd said.

Not only that, but the complex would provide much-needed diversion for Western Marylanders.

“Our opportunities here are slim to none here as far as entertainment,” Judd said. “Anything we can bring in is a plus

Anyone have the full article?

Maryland 'burbs catch office spec-building fever
Washington Business Journal - January 26, 2007by Prabha NatarajanStaff Reporter


The swaths of undeveloped land along arterial highways in suburban Maryland have caught developers' and investors' fancy, creating a rash of speculative commercial buildings in a relatively overlooked area.

Recent reports estimate that more than 1.5 million square feet of spec office space is under construction in Montgomery and Prince George's counties, nearly three-fourths of all development in that region, although only 14 percent is leased so far.

I only knew about 2 and 4. :dunno:

I wouldn't be surprised if there are more, probably one for Clarksburg.

Two hospitals in Prince George's County, where a money-losing health care system has dominated recent headlines, are quietly dishing out a combined $112 million toward their biggest expansions to date.

While county leaders try to decide the future of Dimensions Healthcare System, owner of Prince George's Hospital Center and Laurel Regional Hospital, other hospital leaders are putting final touches on plans to enlarge Fort Washington Medical Center and Doctors Community Hospital.

Plans for a high-rise residential complex in downtown Rockville might finally be coming together after more than two years of debate and an ownership change.

Reston-based Duball is eager to start a $240 million development that would bring 485 residential units to Rockville, says President Mark Dubick.

Rockville will get more than 40 new retailers and restaurants when a $350 million town square project opens this spring, but there's another element to the project that could provide a boost to the city.

Montgomery County is starting to accept applications for its fourth incubator facility, planned for two floors above an arts complex at Rockville Town Square.

A team led by The Bozzuto Group has been tapped to redevelop Montgomery County's planning offices on Georgia Avenue.

The county will start negotiations with a joint venture of Greenbelt-based Bozzuto, the D.C. office of Spaulding & Slye Investments and Baltimore-based Harrison Development to build a nine-story, 120,000-square-foot headquarters for Montgomery County's park and planning operations.

^^ ^^
I think that stuff belongs in the Baltimore-Washington Subforum.

Anybody have info on this,

Oakridge Office Center, 12040 Plum Orchard Drive,

Silver Spring, Proposed, 560,000 square feet, $30.00, Trammell Crow Company, Kathy Keller

Plans for a high-rise residential complex in downtown Rockville might finally be coming together after more than two years of debate and an ownership change.

Reston-based Duball is eager to start a $240 million development that would bring 485 residential units to Rockville, says President Mark Dubick.


Anyone have renderings? :)

Anyone have renderings? :)

It's gorgeous, probably one of the best architectural designs we've gotten in a while.

http://cll.bizjournals.com/story_image/69481-400-0.jpg?rev=2

It's gorgeous, probably one of the best architectural designs we've gotten in a while.

http://cll.bizjournals.com/story_image/69481-400-0.jpg?rev=2

That is totally kickass. Looks like a cooler version of Bethesda's Acacia Bank Tower. In the future, can we keep Baltimore-Washington area developments exclusively in the Baltimore-Washington forum. I think the Maryland Development thread should be used for development outside of the metroplex in cities like Cumberland or Ocean City.

BTW, whats up with the 15 year old corvette in the rendering????

MedImmune reports profits; stock falls on sales
Washington Business Journal - 5:44 PM EST Wednesday, February 7, 2007by Jeff ClabaughStaff Reporter

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Medimmune, losing money a year ago, reported a profit for its latest quarter on gains in sales of its drugs and vaccines.

The Gaithersburg-based company had fourth-quarter net income of $121 million, or 50 cents per share, compared to a net loss of $22 million, or 9 cents per share in the same quarter a year ago. Quarterly revenue rose 7 percent to $529 million.


MedImmune was expected to report revenue of $554.3 million, according to the average estimate of analysts in a Bloomberg survey.

MedImmune shares fell 8.73 percent, or $2.97 per share, to close at $31.04 in trading Wednesday.

Sales of its Synagis drug, a treatment for infant respiratory infection, led revenue, accounting for $457 million in revenue. MedImmune's FluMist nasal spray flu vaccine added $18 million in revenue, more than double sales of FluMist in the same quarter a year ago.

MedImmune's 2006 revenue was $1.3 billion, compared to $1.1 billion in total sales in 2005.

MedImmune (NASDAQ: MEDI) also confirmed its earlier guidance for 2007 results, forecasting $1.5 billion in revenue this year.

Howard chamber opposes caps on Columbia projects
Baltimore Business Journal - 3:14 PM EST Monday, February 26, 2007by Daniel J. SernovitzStaff
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Members of the Howard County Chamber of Commerce have come out in opposition to a pair of zoning changes aimed at placing height restrictions on new projects in downtown Columbia, contending the bills are designed to counteract the county's own approval process.

Councilwoman Mary Kay Sigaty recently introduced the bills, which deal with height restrictions in the Columbia New Town zoning district but which the chamber contends are aimed specifically at blocking construction of an already-approved, 22-story condominium building.


"To compete in the business world, companies need to rely on a predictable process," Del Karfonta, chairman of the chamber's board of directors, said in a statement. "If these measures are adopted, Howard County's business climate would be far from predictable."

Sigaty has proposed to cap building heights in the New Town district to 150 feet, or about 15 stories, which falls below a 22 story condo building proposed by Florida-based WCI Communities Inc. The councilwoman also has introduced a companion bill that would alter what county projects are considered to be pending, and therefore exempted from the proposed height-restriction bill.

Development of the condo building was delayed after a resident appealed the county planning board's vote to allow WCI to put up residential units at the Wincopin Circle site. The chamber contends the bills would apply retroactively to WCI's planned development.

Chamber President Pam Klahr said she less concerned by the proposed height limitations, or by the ultimate fate of the WCI project, than she is by what impact the retroactive nature of the legislation will have on businesses considering moving into the area.

"It's much further reaching than that," she said. "It's really what it would be saying to any business that would be looking into Howard County," she said. "Predictability for businesses in the future is really questionable."

Sigaty could not be reached for comment.

Here's an article that ran in the News Journal last week about Aberdeen.

Aberdeen is poised for massive growth
Base realignment plan expected to add 8,200 jobs by 2011


NORTH EAST, Md.-- Jobs coming to Aberdeen Proving Ground as part of the Base Realignment and Closure plan will be high-tech, high-dollar and plentiful.

Electronic and computer engineers. Management and program analysts. Technical writers. IT managers. Security specialists.

BRAC is expected to bring an estimated 8,200 jobs to APG by fall 2011 -- and at least twice as many defense-related jobs outside the gate, said Karen Emery, BRAC manager for Harford County, Md.

The average salary: Upwards of $80,000,

"There's going to be a real opportunity," said Emery, acknowledging that her office uses conservative statistics. Some reports indicate that BRAC will bring as many as 60,000 jobs to the area.

It's still too early to start applying. The first BRAC-related jobs aren't expected to emerge until 2009.

But stay alert. It won't be long before the dominoes start falling.

Maryland economic development officials are working on an Internet "employment portal" that will list all BRAC job opportunities at www.maryland ready.com, Emery said. No launch date has been set.

"We're developing a prototype as we speak," Emery said.

For the time being, specifics about what opportunities BRAC might bring are elusive. Even staff at the APG's Civilian Personnel Advisory Center aren't privy.

Two APG staff members sat at a booth Thursday at Cecil Community College's annual spring job fair accepting applications. Though some passers-by inquired, none of the jobs posted were BRAC-related.

Louise Craig of Elkton filled out an application for an office assistant position. Unemployed after working in an office for 10 years, the APG booth caught her eye. She wasn't familiar with the BRAC plan.

"I thought they were considering closing it," Craig said of the 72,000-acre Army post first opened in 1917.

Already Harford County's largest employer, APG employs more than 11,000 military and civilian workers, with an annual payroll of more than $400 million, according to statistics on the Maryland Ready Web site.

"You hear about how everybody's downsizing," Craig said. "I was real pleasantly surprised to see the booth here."

About 200 attended the job fair, which featured employers such as Pepsi, UPS, AAA Mid-Atlantic and Met Life.

Cecil Community College expects BRAC's impact to ripple through the region in the months and years ahead.

"For the college as a whole, it's on the radar," said Andrew Coston, an academic adviser at the school's Career Management Services.

"When we think about where our students are going to come from, we think about BRAC," he said. "When we think of science and technology and what programs we need to have we think about BRAC."

"We're asking the questions, 'How can we prepare to serve the number of people that are coming? How can we assist them in matching them up with the employers that are out there with the skills they have?' "

http://vh10018.v1.moc.gbahn.net/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=BL&Date=20070330&Category=BUSINESS&ArtNo=703300336&Ref=AR&Profile=1003
Jamie Bennett, 32, of North East, Md., talks about jobs at Aberdeen Proving Ground with human resources assistant Jessica Scalph at a job fair Thursday at Cecil Community College.

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070330/BUSINESS/703300336/1003

Info has been slow for a while now. :(

I think this would be a good idea. According to the print article in the paper, it only costs $11 one-way to go from the Perryville station to Union Station in DC. Assuming it's $22 or maybe $25 round-trip to get from Perryville to DC, I think I'm going to use this for going to DC, rather than driving down and paying $9 in tolls on top of the gas. It seems like a lot of people that are from Delaware and commute to Baltimore or DC would use it as well, since MARC appears to be much cheaper than Amtrak.

Elkton-area commuters push for rail service
Growth makes need urgent, Cecil officials say


ELKTON, Md. -- Polly Binns lives a skip and a jump from the old Elkton train station, but to get to her job in Washington, she has to drive 30 minutes south to the Perryville stop.

Passenger trains haven't stopped in the Cecil County seat for more than 20 years, when Amtrak service ended -- a fact that practically everybody who's anybody around here wants to change.

Along the nearly 460 miles of regional commuter rail lines between Richmond, Va., and New London, Conn., there is only one major gap: the 20 miles between Perryville and Newark, Del.

"We need commuter rail service," said Binns, one of about 40 people who gathered Tuesday to figure out how to get expanded rail service for one of Maryland's fastest-growing counties on the fast track.

Before dawn most mornings Binns parks at the train station in Perryville, the southeastern-most town in Cecil County. There, vehicles typically are double- and triple-parked.

"I'm amazed at who gets on that train," said Binns, whose commute is about two hours. "I know people from Delaware that get on that train at 6 o'clock in the morning, or whatever those god-awful times are."

Organized by Delegate David Rudolph, Tuesday's event brought together major players to discuss an expensive -- and increasingly urgent -- proposition that's never gotten financial support.

Legislation that would have forced the Maryland Transit Administration to begin service to Elkton by July 2010 never made it to a vote this spring. Cost estimates ranged from $13 million to $53 million.

But with the federal Base Realignment and Closure plan on the horizon, officials are feeling the heat. An estimated 45,000 people are expected to move to the state in the next five years as jobs grow at Aberdeen Proving Ground and Fort Meade.

Officials will seek funding for one of the plans next year, Rudolph said.

The Cecil County delegation plans to ask that the project be fast-tracked because of BRAC and the pressures growth is placing on transportation.

"Traffic's getting to be such a miserable situation," said Andrew Johnson, Elkton's assistant town administrator. "Route 40 has as much traffic on it now as before I-95 was built."

Mayors from most of Cecil County's eight municipalities attended Tuesday's four-hour meeting, which included tours of the train stations in Perryville and Elkton. More than two dozen officials, public and private, gave reasons why rail service is necessary for the region to sustain growth.

For Union Hospital, which has invested $70 million in its Elkton facility in the past several years, the BRAC influx could bring many new patients and employees to its doors.

"I believe health care services will benefit from rail service and rail service will benefit from the health care community," said Dr. Kenneth Lewis, chief executive officer of the hospital. "If people relocate in Aberdeen or Perryville, we would like them to be able to work in Elkton by hopping on a train."

Maryland Transit Administrator Paul Wiedefeld didn't make any promises Tuesday, but he said transit has strong support with the O'Malley administration. More important, he said, the public is on board.

Ridership on Maryland Rail Commuter, or MARC, from the Perryville station has increased 27 percent from 25,712 to 32,767 passengers from 2005 to 2006. In Delaware, commuter train ridership increased 16 percent last year, said Cathy Smith, planning manager for DART.

"The public gets it," Wiedefeld said. "They understand congestion. They understand the price of fuel. They understand the impact on the environment. And they understand the quality of life."

http://cmsimg.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=BL&Date=20070502&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=705020398&Ref=AR&Profile=1006
Maryland commuter train ridership from Perryville has increased 27 percent from 2005 to 2006.

http://cmsimg.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=BL&Date=20070502&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=705020398&Ref=V2&Profile=1006
Maryland Transit Administrator Paul Wiedefeld (left) and Perryville Mayor Jim Eberhardt discuss Cecil County rail service Tuesday. Wiedefeld said transit has strong support with the O'Malley administration.

http://cmsimg.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=BL&Date=20070502&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=705020398&Ref=V3&Profile=1006

THE PROPOSALS

At a meeting Tuesday, Maryland Transit Administrator Paul Wiedefeld presented three options for expanded commuter rail service in Maryland:

• The Amtrak solution, in which Amtrak would add an Elkton stop. Estimated cost: $13 million.

• Extend Maryland Rail Commuter (MARC) service to Elkton. Estimated cost: $8 million to $18 million.

• Extend MARC service to Newark. Estimated cost: $17 million to $21 million.

Each option would require some construction and negotiations with Amtrak, which owns the railroad.

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070502/NEWS/705020398/1006/NEWS

I think this would be a good idea. According to the print article in the paper, it only costs $11 one-way to go from the Perryville station to Union Station in DC. Assuming it's $22 or maybe $25 round-trip to get from Perryville to DC, I think I'm going to use this for going to DC, rather than driving down and paying $9 in tolls on top of the gas. It seems like a lot of people that are from Delaware and commute to Baltimore or DC would use it as well, since MARC appears to be much cheaper than Amtrak.

I think that this is an outstanding idea. I have taken the Marc to DC a couple of times and thought it was great. Althought I wish they had 1 mid day run. I would push to work with Deleware and SEPTA officals for a connection at Newark.

I didn't realize how much cheaper MARC is to Amtrak.

I know that SEPTA has the R2 line that goes to Wilmington, but I think that might be the only stop they have in Delaware. Newark might only be serviced by Amtrak. I could be wrong though.

The addition of thousands of jobs to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds will most likely lead to Harford and Cecil Counties to boom in the next 5-10 years. Most growth will be suburban style, although local towns like Elkton, Havre de Grace, and others might see growth in their town's districts.

Defense industry to reshape Cecil's rural landscape
Shift at Aberdeen expected to bring thousands of jobs, 60,000 new people


Danny DeMarinis doesn't look like an acronym.

He is a pleasant, garrulous, 60-year-old man with four college degrees, two grown sons and a silver Ford Taurus.

By July, DeMarinis and his wife, Nancy, will have moved from New Jersey into a new three-bedroom ranch house in Elkton.

And BRAC will be what brought them.

The acronym -- for Base Realignment and Closure -- has been the buzz of the mid-Atlantic since November 2005, when the federal government announced it would send some 8,200 high-tech jobs to Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.

Thousands of defense contractors are expected to follow, helping the Army develop and test weapons and communications systems.

Exactly how many people BRAC will bring -- and where they'll live -- remains a question.

For 20 months, experts of every ilk have strained to get their arms around it. A best guess is that about 60,000 new residents will move to the region by the time it's all over.

The projected numbers are staggering: 45,000 jobs, $2 billion in annual salaries, $100 million in annual income tax.

Maryland economists call it the largest source of employment growth in the state since World War II. Cecil County Economic Development Director Vernon Thompson believes it will prove even more prodigious.

"This is the biggest change that will take place in the Northeast since Washington marched through here," Thompson said. "This is not to be confused with anything small."

BRAC, a guttural and impersonal acronym, has created an atmosphere of exhilaration and anxiety.

Developers cheer the economic possibilities.

"We have the ability to make this the country's next technology corridor," Harford County developer Clark Turner told an audience of several hundred of the region's business and government leaders in April.

But some local government leaders and residents are less exuberant. Fearful of sprawl, they are frantically organizing to try to protect the region's remaining open spaces.

"We are going to be very under attack, development wise," said John Bunnell, mayor of Cecilton, population 500. "And we don't have the things in place to protect ourselves."

All over the map

B-R-A-C.

It's a plague of locusts, or a pot of gold. Either way, it's difficult to put a face on it.

Enter: Mr. DeMarinis.

DeMarinis is a little early. It will be 2009 before most BRAC-related jobs begin arriving in Aberdeen.

"We bit the bullet," said DeMarinis, regional vice president of MITRE, a research firm that provides technology support to the military.

By summer, MITRE will open an office at Water's Edge Corporate Campus in Harford County. Eventually, 180 engineers and scientists will work there.

For now, it's DeMarinis and two colleagues. Both bought houses in Cecil County.

"If everybody lived in a tight cluster in Aberdeen, it wouldn't be good," said DeMarinis, who considered homes in Baltimore and Delaware. "I think we're going to be a bit all over the map, considering the radius we're working with."

Mild-mannered, with salt-and-pepper hair, he is, like most MITRE employees, nearing retirement. An electrical engineer by trade -- he has two bachelor's degrees, an MBA and a master's -- he's lived for 33 years in Monroe Township, N.J., about twice the size of Elkton. He raised two sons there, Frank, 34, and Leonard, 41. Empty-nesters, he and Nancy had fixed the house just-so and planned to live out their days there.

A majority of employees at Fort Monmouth's Communications Electronics Command in New Jersey -- the largest contingency coming to Aberdeen Proving Ground -- fit a similar profile. About 60 percent of its 4,000 workers are within five years of retirement, said Karen Emery, BRAC coordinator for the Harford County Economic Development Office.

But Fort Monmouth is just a small part of the bigger BRAC picture. At least 4,000 more military and civilian personnel are being asked to move to Aberdeen from Army posts in Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Texas, Alabama and Arizona.

They are computer engineers and information technology managers, security specialists and telecommunication technicians. Mostly civilians, they do things like design radar for unmanned spy planes. Find ways to detect and defuse explosives. Design computer programs to embed coded messages.

Their average age, according to Emery, is 47.

Some will move to Maryland. Others will retire. Some will find other jobs within the government, or other jobs altogether.

Those who don't move will leave vacant jobs that could be filled by qualified locals.

Then the whole process repeats itself, ad infinitum, as thousands more who work within the military-industrial complex -- private defense contractors, federally funded research firms such as MITRE -- follow the core BRAC movement.

For DeMarinis, the decision to sell his New Jersey home was difficult.

"Our children were born and raised there," he said. "I have their measuring marks along the garage door from 2 years old to 15, when they wouldn't let me do it anymore. It's truly home."

But BRAC seemed the right kind of adventure, and the DeMarinis' youngest son, Frank, lives in Cecil County.

Influx of civilians

Most of the thousands of others moving, like DeMarinis, are civilians. And the proving ground, which opened during World War I as a testing ground for artillery, will lose about 3,000 of its traditional soldiers when its Ordnance School moves to Virginia.

Instead of green camouflage, most employees on and off the post will wear a shirt and tie to work. Instead of teaching soldiers how to fix tanks, they'll work in bio-chem laboratories or "antennae farms" for radio and satellite communications.

The Defense Department implements a BRAC strategy every few years to consolidate and realign its resources -- closing some bases, enhancing others -- to try to keep America's military effectively supported.

Even as the more traditional Army activities disappear, much of Aberdeen Proving Ground's original mission will continue -- research and development on ballistics, armor, chemical and biological defense, and the testing, or "proving," of weapons at ranges on the 72,000-acre post.

Outside the fence, more firms like MITRE will provide support as the Army modernizes.

MITRE's engineers recently helped develop a tracking system that "allows us to know where our war-fighters are at all times on the battlefield," DeMarinis said.

"If we see a technology that might be useful, we adapt it, or develop it. There's so much technology out there. We try to figure out how do you smartly use what exists?"

After a lengthy search, DeMarinis found space for MITRE's new Aberdeen office.

"Quite frankly, there was a modest amount available," said DeMarinis, who searched in a 20-mile radius of the base. "We were working in an environment of scarcity."

Pressures

The needs of newcomers such as DeMarinis -- for housing, office space, transportation -- have sent planners and developers into a frenzy. In a February report, the Maryland Planning Department warned that unless state and local officials act quickly, BRAC could strain water supplies, aggravate sprawl and worsen road congestion.

The 300-page report indicates that Harford County faces the greatest growth pressures -- about 6,500 new households are expected to settle there.

But the future of Delaware's neighbor, Cecil County, could be even more dire. Primarily rural, Cecil is attractive because of its bucolic setting and reasonable proximity to the proving ground. Already the fastest-growing county in Maryland, Cecil is expected to absorb about 2,000 additional households.

A 2007 growth study commissioned by the county indicates that leaders must enhance infrastructure -- particularly in the county's growth corridor along I-95 and U.S. 40 -- if BRAC is to have a positive impact. Otherwise, the report says, it could be devastating.

Cecil County's population has doubled in 35 years, from 50,000 in 1970 to 100,000 in 2005. It's expected to reach 160,000 by 2030.

The "wave of development to come has the potential to annihilate the county's agricultural sector and compromise the community's quality of life and heritage," according to the study conducted by Sage Policy Group Inc.

As of 2001, 87 percent of acreage developed in Cecil was outside the designated growth area -- turning productive agricultural land into residential developments, the study says.

Maps drawn more recently by the Cecil County Planning Department paint an even more disturbing picture.

In 2005, there were 24 dots on the map -- all marking developments, large and small, submitted for approval.

On the map showing a cumulative total of proposed developments to date, there are 159 dots spread across the county.

In a one-traffic-light town like Cecilton in southern Cecil, that sort of frenzied activity doesn't go over very well. Surrounded by farms, many of them Amish, with a gentle, sloping terrain, Cecilton has about 500 residents. The town, where about 10 new houses are built every year, has never annexed property. It has no grocery store, one restaurant, a bank and a library.

A bumper sticker available for free at town hall says: "Cecilton, Maryland: The way life should be."

In 2001, a developer proposed annexing land to build a 500-unit subdivision in Cecilton. Wearing an expensive three-piece suit, he hosted an open house at a Cecilton church, where 300 residents "pretty much ran him out of town," said Mayor John Bunnell.

"Just about with pitchforks."

Bunnell, who is also on the board of the Maryland Municipal League, spent last summer driving to each of Cecil County's towns, touting a 38-page Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance.

The laws, not uncommon, are adopted by some local governments to defer growth that can't be adequately provided for.

Though most of the towns' leaders supported it, the Cecil County Commission didn't. Commissioners scrapped Bunnell's draft and started over. Many of Cecil County's municipalities feel shut out of the BRAC planning process, he said.

"The county's letting growth pretty much run rampant," said Bunnell. "They act like the towns aren't part of the county."

Cecil County officials say they're doing everything they can to guide growth to the most desirable places.

"My own hope is that we'll have more business and industry come to Cecil County and less housing," said Commissioner Rebecca Demmler.

On a smaller scale, DeMarinis is also grappling with weighty issues.

With half his furniture in New Jersey and half at the new Elkton address, he's traveling 150 miles several days a week to start a life in Maryland.

Big picture, DeMarinis believes, it will all be worthwhile.

"It's a new start," he said. "It feels like home already."

http://cmsimg.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=BL&Date=20070520&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=705200382&Ref=AR&Profile=1006
An Army unit marches at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. The BRAC influx will bring more civilians than soldiers to the Army base.

http://cmsimg.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=BL&Date=20070520&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=705200382&Ref=H3&Profile=1006
Danny and Nancy DeMarinis bought a home in Elkton in November. His company will bring 180 engineers and scientists to work in a Harford County, Md., facility. Many of them will find homes in Cecil County.

http://cmsimg.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=BL&Date=20070520&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=705200382&Ref=V4&Profile=1006
Warrant Officers (from left) Andrew Pobud, Raymond Ludwig and Brian Tuttle work on a Bradley Fighting Vehicle at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.

http://cmsimg.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=BL&Date=20070520&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=705200382&Ref=H5&Profile=1006
Cecilton Mayor John Bunnell complains small towns have been cut out of the loop.

http://cmsimg.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=BL&Date=20070520&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=705200382&Ref=V6&Profile=1006

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007705200382

Another article about Northeast Maryland booming in the next few years.


Economic boom putting U.S. 40 on road to recovery
Counties along corridor eagerly awaiting defense industry jobs


Beyond the junkyards and flea markets alongside the once-prominent road, a curving stone marker sets a new tone for U.S. 40. It announces itself with quiet dignity, conjuring images of regal Rome: "Principio."

Latin for "first," it marks the beginnings of a 1,000-acre office park near Charlestown -- one of several developments sprouting along U.S. 40 from New Castle to Baltimore.

Along and around the highway, which opened in the 1940s, about 12 million square feet of office space are being developed as the region hustles to get ready for BRAC. The abbreviation stands for Base Realignment and Closure, and is expected to send thousands of defense-related jobs this way.

Maryland planners expect an estimated 60,000 new residents by 2011 -- most of them well-educated and well-paid. The new jobs, anchored at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Harford County, Md., are mostly white-collar and high-tech, with an average salary of at least $80,000. All this could mark a new era for a highway reduced to second-class status after I-95 opened in 1963.

"You get into Elkton and past Elkton, and there's some areas of junk cars, some rougher-looking areas," said Gary Stewart Jr. of Stewart Associates, which is developing Principio Business Park and a nearby housing development called Charlestown Crossing. "We don't want that. We want that as far away as possible."

Developers such as Stewart and Clark Turner, of Harford County, are building high-end housing and office space to lure tenants to the U.S. 40 corridor.

In anticipation of its transformation, the area has already been renamed. Local leaders, including New Castle County Executive Chris Coons, christened the U.S. 40/I-95 artery the Chesapeake Science and Security Corridor during a daylong workshop last month.

"Route 40 and I-95 are our Main Street," said Anthony DiGiacomo, Cecil County's principal planner. "That's the impression we make as people go through."

Highway's thriving history

In the 1950s, U.S. 40 was the most traveled transcontinental highway in the country, stretching more than 3,200 miles from San Francisco to Atlantic City.

Delaware's 15-mile stretch was particularly prosperous, according to Frank Brusca, whose Web site, U.S. Route 40: America's Golden Highway, recounts the history of the road. Back then, it was a "tourist's landmark," Brusca says, where "motels, restaurants and gas stations popped up like daisies."

Postcards from the golden age of U.S. 40 show New Castle County's "motel row" -- the Dutch Village Motor Court, Park Plaza Motel, New Castle Motor Lodge -- all with trim lawns and tidy rooms.

Cecil County's DiGiacomo remembers a drive-in movie theater and souvenir stands along the road in Elkton.

In Perryville, hundreds of recruits from the nearby -- and now-defunct -- Bainbridge Naval Training Center would gather at U.S. 40's Whistle Stop, which in the 1950s was a Greyhound bus station and restaurant.

By the time Rex Burkins bought the Whistle Stop and a cluster of businesses around it in 1970, U.S. 40 was second-best. The parallel I-95, christened by President Kennedy in 1963, offered drivers an unimpeded route north to New York or south to Washington. For several years, though, U.S. 40 still thrived.

"Our business doubled just by getting on Route 40," said Burkins, who was in his 20s when he moved Frontier Carpet to the busy corner of U.S. 40 and Md. 222, where today he owns the Corner Consignment Shop, the Whistle Stop Family Restaurant, Family Pawn and Jewelry and the Rt. 40 Laundromat.

But eventually, traffic declined. Many of U.S. 40's westernmost sections -- in California, Nevada and Utah -- were decommissioned.

From the Whistle Stop, Burkins watched as surrounding businesses sold out. Property values declined. Less-desirable tenants moved in.

Travel the highway today in Cecil and Harford counties and you'll see adult video stores, run-down diners, a tattoo parlor and discount liquor stores.

Just outside North East, Md., thousands of rusted and crumpled vehicles sprawl across the hillside at B&H Auto Parts' salvage yard. "We Buy Cars. $200," a sign on one windshield says.

One novelty shop near Perryville, a holdover from the days when tourists traveled the road, brags it is the "World's Largest Post Card Shop." Inside are hundreds of faded, plastic-covered cards of everything from hillbillies to hobos, courthouses to covered bridges.

Here and there, one-story hotels -- new and inviting in the 1950s -- now rent rooms for a day or a week.

"We do really good business," said Leigh Woods, manager of Steele's Motel just outside Elkton at U.S. 40 and Md. 279. Tucked among tall trees off the road, the decades-old hotel has 21 cabins, where singles and families can stay for about $200 a week. "We don't have any crackheads in here or anything."

In Perryville, Burkins' own buildings have become outdated, with worn carpet and cracked paint. The "Whistle Stop" sign, made of plywood, is warped from water and wear.

Jumping into the mix

But amid the blight, there are signs of rebirth.

Traffic, for one thing, is plentiful. A 2006 Wilmington Area Planning Council study estimated that 50,000 vehicles travel U.S. 40 each day on the Delaware side of the border.

And construction activity abounds.

In Delaware, eight major new developments were submitted for review in 2006, including the 90,000-square-foot Bear-Glasgow YMCA, the 100,000-square-foot School Bell Crossing Shopping Center and the 110-unit housing development called Steeple Glen.

In Harford County, officials plan to build an office building on seven acres, with landscaping and decorative stone walls. And Clark Turner, the developer, is already reaping benefits from two mixed-use developments there.

Town houses with river views at Water's Edge, the site of an old shoe factory on the Bush River in Belcamp, have sold for $500,000 to $700,000. A corporate campus with five-story office buildings and fiber optic wiring is rapidly filling with tenants. Other amenities include a fitness center, walking trails, a putting green and bistro.

In nearby Havre de Grace, Turner sold 322 custom homes at Bulle Rock in the first year alone. Some of those, called Triple Crown homes, go for more than $1 million each. The development, which includes a nationally ranked golf course, also offers 300,000 square feet of office space.

In Cecil, the county has broken ground on a new 83,000-square-foot county administration building along U.S. 40 near the Delaware line. And Stewart Associates has been working for several years to design the upscale Principio and Charlestown Crossing, hoping to set an example for other developers.

Both developments will have strict covenants governing the types of structures that can be built. At Principio, for example, no metal buildings will be allowed among the potential 8 million square feet of office space. At Charlestown Crossing, being touted as "Cecil County's premier address," architecture must adhere to a Colonial theme. The subdivision's 600 homes will sell for anywhere from $250,000 to $500,000, Stewart said.

"We don't want to strong-arm anybody," said Stewart, who lives in Pennsylvania, but commutes to a Perryville office several days a week. "It's more leading by example."

Though they haven't officially started marketing Principio, the development has attracted significant interest.

General Electric moved into a 1 million-square-foot distribution center two years ago. Perryville Cold Storage and Champion are each building large distribution centers.

Of the park's 8 million-square-foot capacity, about 2 million is filled, Stewart said. And the developer's phone is steadily ringing.

With Turner, who is a friendly competitor, Stewart Associates has encouraged local governments to "fast track" the development process and be flexible with zoning requirements along U.S. 40 as builders strive to quickly create an inventory of office and living space. The U.S. 40/I-95 corridor is considered a desirable, or "smart growth," area because of existing infrastructure.

Planners estimate that new BRAC households and businesses will pay up to $12,000 each in annual income and property taxes, Turner said. That revenue could total up to $250 million a year for Harford and Cecil counties. "For sale" and "For lease" signs grow like weeds along U.S. 40, mostly for commercial development.

But there are worries. "What you get concerned about is people who come in from out of town, who really don't care about the community," said Stewart, whose family owns close to 9,000 acres of land in Cecil County and is carefully planning how to develop it. "They're here to make a dollar. They buy 200 acres on Route 40. They throw in anything they can, develop it as quickly as possible, as inexpensively as possible. And they just leave town. That's what you don't like to see."

By raising the quality bar a notch or two, the Stewarts and Turners of the region hope to inspire others to elevate their ideals. "Activity breeds activity," Stewart said.

From the Whistle Stop, Burkins' decades-old businesses, you can see a mixture of old and new. To the east and across the highway, a new Food Lion opened in February -- the town's first modern grocery store. Nearby, with a stately brick facade, are the still-developing Harbor Shops.

Burkins, who's gotten a couple of offers on his property, isn't planning to sell. But he's considering making some changes -- new carpet, fresh paint.

"We're going to have to kind of get up with the times ourselves and modernize the outside appearance of the building," said Susan Burkins, Rex's wife, who works in the consignment shop. She imagines flower boxes in the windows. "It needs to be fixed up," she said. "I think it's time to do it."

http://cmsimg.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=BL&Date=20070521&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=705210347&Ref=AR&Profile=1006
Along U.S. 40, businesses and cities are awaiting the boost from BRAC.

http://cmsimg.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=BL&Date=20070521&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=705210347&Ref=V3&Profile=1006
The Principo Business Park is an 8 million-square-foot office complex near Charlestown. Two million square feet are already filled.

http://cmsimg.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=BL&Date=20070521&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=705210347&Ref=V4&Profile=1006
Developer Gary Stewart Jr. is behind the Principio Business Park near Charlestown. He said there are worries. “What you get concerned about is people who come in from out of town, who really don’t care about the community,” said Stewart, whose family owns close to 9,000 acres of land in Cecil County and is carefully planning how to develop it. “They’re here to make a dollar. They buy 200 acres on Route 40. They throw in anything they can, develop it as quickly as possible, as inexpensively as possible. And they just leave town. That’s what you don’t like to see.”

http://cmsimg.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=BL&Date=20070521&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=705210347&Ref=V2&Profile=1006

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070521/NEWS/705210347/1006/NEWS

I was in Ocean City this past weekend for a short time. It has changed a lot since I last saw it 6 or 7 years ago. I can't believe all of the contruction going on down there, all up and down the Coastal Highway.

Some projects that I noticed:

The Gateway Grand condos, going up at 48th Street & Coastal Highway:
http://www.thegatewaygrand.com/

The Meridian condos, going up at 60th Street & Coastal Highway:
http://www.themeridianoceanfront.com/index.html

The Rivendell condos, going up on 81st Street on the Bay:
http://www.rivendellcondos.com/

There are a couple more projects going on in Ocean City. I plan on going down there once or twice this Summer and looking around.

Howard tower project begins
23-story condo has drawn protest from residents, officials

By Melissa Harris | Sun reporter
August 12, 2007
A Florida developer has started construction on a 23-story condominium tower on Columbia's Lakefront after opponents failed repeatedly to limit its height or overturn county approval of the project.

The conflict has pitted the developer, WCI Communities, and business interests against neighbors and slow-growth advocates, who protest that the tower will loom over lush tree canopy and cast neighboring condos in shadows.

When completed, The Plaza Residences will be the tallest building in Howard County at 275 feet.

The tower will house parking, ground-floor retail and 162 condominiums ranging in price from $565,000 to more than $2 million, according to the company's Web site. The 1.46-acre site is across Little Patuxent Parkway from The Mall in Columbia,

Architecturally, the Plaza will be a sleek contrast with the few boxy office towers that are visible from Route 29.

"It's out of place," said Joel Broida, who has lived in Columbia since 1971 and moved into a new condominium behind The Plaza's proposed site from a single-family home two years ago. "It's just not part of the environment. This company builds beautiful condos down on the beaches in Florida. That's exactly where they should be."

The tower has been a focus of debate over the future of downtown Columbia, called Town Center. The 40-year-old community was a monumental achievement for its day -- a place acclaimed for tolerance and diversity, as well as good schools and property values -- but it is starting to show its age.

James W. Rouse's vision of walkable neighborhoods, a hallmark of new urbanism and environmentally friendly suburban design, never materialized. At rush hour, downtown Columbia can be a parking lot. Signs mark one strip of Little Patuxent Parkway as chronically congested.

"This project will bring tax revenue to Columbia, smart growth to Columbia and revitalization to Columbia," said William Rowe, vice president of WCI.

What Columbia will look like 10 or 20 years from now has not been decided, and opponents are doing everything to ensure that The Plaza Residences do not set the standard.

In June, County Councilwoman Mary Kay Sigaty, a west Columbia Democrat, unsuccessfully tried to get the planning board to limit building heights to 150 feet, or 14 stories, until a new plan for downtown Columbia is completed. She wanted that limit applied to any project on appeal, which would have covered the tower.

In July, Howard County Circuit Judge Diane O. Leasure sided with WCI and against four Columbia residents, including Broida, on a procedural matter. The residents have asked her to reconsider.

County Executive Ken Ulman vowed before November's election to oppose the tower, but his attempts to persuade WCI to select another site or shrink the building have not succeeded.

Part of the problem, he said, is that WCI obtained all the permits necessary to build last year, and the residents who filed suit won't accept a smaller building. They don't want the tower constructed at all, he said.

"There are so many different parties involved with so many different ideas of what should happen," Ulman said. "I'm frustrated. I had hoped we would have been able to reach a compromise by now."

WCI started fencing the property last week to prevent soil erosion and prepare the site for digging, Rowe said. A bulldozer and a large steam shovel were sitting on the site.

The start of construction could have significant legal implications. Once "substantial construction" has been done, a court can't stop the work.

But Ulman said the conflict is not over. Nearby residents have not exhausted their judicial appeals, and Ulman said Sigaty plans to submit legislation this month that would limit Columbia buildings to 14 stories and apply to the tower. Sigaty did not return e-mails and phone calls to her home and office Friday.

"Because this legislation is pending, my hope is that folks will still come to the table in good faith and try to work together," Ulman said.



melissa.harris@baltsun.com
Sun reporter Larry Carson contributed to this article.

I was in Ocean City this past weekend for a short time. It has changed a lot since I last saw it 6 or 7 years ago. I can't believe all of the contruction going on down there, all up and down the Coastal Highway.

Some projects that I noticed:

The Gateway Grand condos, going up at 48th Street & Coastal Highway:
http://www.thegatewaygrand.com/

The Meridian condos, going up at 60th Street & Coastal Highway:
http://www.themeridianoceanfront.com/index.html

The Rivendell condos, going up on 81st Street on the Bay:
http://www.rivendellcondos.com/

There are a couple more projects going on in Ocean City. I plan on going down there once or twice this Summer and looking around.


Cool.
They all have a similiar look/feel to them.

Here's a web site of a project which is well under way. It's near the Mall & Big Box area just outside the city. Hopefully it won't affect the real city center (which is beautiful), but it is quite an ambitious project for a smaller city. It will definately have a negative effect on traffic in the area (which is already bad).

http://www.ggcommercial.com/projects/parole/parole.html


Here's some pics of the construction at Annapolis Towne Centre at Parole. I took these on 8/15/07.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1381/1215544555_ec764d961d.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1396/1215544583_255c2bcbd8.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1351/1215544599_c2f795da94.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1155/1215544609_438a364280.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1073/1215544619_171a793571.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1220/1215544627_29fc0571b1.jpg

:)

Here's a web site of a project which is well under way. It's near the Mall & Big Box area just outside the city. Hopefully it won't affect the real city center (which is beautiful), but it is quite an ambitious project for a smaller city. It will definately have a negative effect on traffic in the area (which is already bad).

http://www.ggcommercial.com/projects/parole/parole.html


Here's some pics of the construction at Annapolis Towne Centre at Parole. I took these on 8/15/07.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1381/1215544555_ec764d961d.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1396/1215544583_255c2bcbd8.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1351/1215544599_c2f795da94.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1155/1215544609_438a364280.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1073/1215544619_171a793571.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1220/1215544627_29fc0571b1.jpg

:)

Now here's the dilemma, do you post that in the Washington Development News thread or the Baltimore Development News thread in the Balt/Wash forum? What a strange area we live in.

^ Yeah, I was conflicted, so I stuck it in the Maryland thread.:nuts:

Now here's the dilemma, do you post that in the Washington Development News thread or the Baltimore Development News thread in the Balt/Wash forum? What a strange area we live in.

Gee, the last time I looked both Anne Arundel and Howard counties were part of the Baltimore Metropolitan Area.

Howard tower project begins
23-story condo has drawn protest from residents, officials

By Melissa Harris | Sun reporter
August 12, 2007
A Florida developer has started construction on a 23-story condominium tower on Columbia's Lakefront after opponents failed repeatedly to limit its height or overturn county approval of the project.

The conflict has pitted the developer, WCI Communities, and business interests against neighbors and slow-growth advocates, who protest that the tower will loom over lush tree canopy and cast neighboring condos in shadows.

When completed, The Plaza Residences will be the tallest building in Howard County at 275 feet.
whew, finally!!! columbia deserves some decent height. this might even become my place of residence. beautiful tower!

I was in Ocean City this past weekend for a short time. It has changed a lot since I last saw it 6 or 7 years ago. I can't believe all of the contruction going on down there, all up and down the Coastal Highway.

Some projects that I noticed:

The Gateway Grand condos, going up at 48th Street & Coastal Highway:
http://www.thegatewaygrand.com/

The Meridian condos, going up at 60th Street & Coastal Highway:
http://www.themeridianoceanfront.com/index.html

The Rivendell condos, going up on 81st Street on the Bay:
http://www.rivendellcondos.com/

There are a couple more projects going on in Ocean City. I plan on going down there once or twice this Summer and looking around.

great to see OC's development still continuing to prosper.:okay:

great to see OC's development still continuing to prosper.:okay:

I'm surprised that Ocean City doesn't get discussed on here, with all of the Baltimore and Maryland people.

I think there's some stuff going up throughout the Eastern Shore. I remember reading about something on Kent Island being proposed.

Gee, the last time I looked both Anne Arundel and Howard counties were part of the Baltimore Metropolitan Area.

Don't be such an asshole. You know damn well that a large percentage the residents of those county's work in Washington. Dare I say it's the better paid half, the half that keeps Baltimore MSA's median incomes up making Baltimore a better city with more retail options?

Were you violently attacked in DC during your childhood, you really seem to hate it?

Don't be such an asshole. You know damn well that a large percentage the residents of those county's work in Washington. Dare I say it's the better paid half, the half that keeps Baltimore MSA's median incomes up making Baltimore a better city with more retail options?

Were you violently attacked in DC during your childhood, you really seem to hate it?

30 Floors up, response???????????
Just trying to stir things up.

Maryland transit officials have embarked on a major expansion of the MARC commuter train service, but they still need to identify funds for the multibillion-dollar effort.

With three lines that run from Baltimore to Union Station in the District, MARC currently serves about 30,000 riders each day.

The Maryland Transit Administration wants to expand to 100,000 riders daily by 2035 through new cars and service to L'Enfant Plaza in the District as well as to Crystal City and the Pentagon in Arlington. Under the plan, those extensions would follow existing train lines used by Virginia Railway Express.

"The move to L'Enfant Plaza would be hugely valuable for MARC riders," said Henry Kay, deputy administrator for planning and engineering for the MTA. "At Union Station, you've only got access to one Metro line, but when you move up to L'Enfant, you've got access to four Metro lines."

The MARC expansion is contingent on several factors, including approvals from railroad operator CSX Corp. (NYSE: CSX) and finding funds for the work. The project is partially driven by the growth expected to occur near Fort Meade and Anne Arundel County, where 22,000 jobs are expected to be created as a result of the recent action related to base realignment and closure (BRAC).

But other factors include existing needs in the MARC system and general economic growth on the Baltimore-Washington corridor, Kay said. A significant portion of the plan would add storage facilities for MARC train cars in D.C. and Baltimore, he said.

"We have absolutely no more room to store the trains," Kay said. "If you look at Union Station, they're stored on the tracks. That's obviously not the way to do it. It's been a huge obstacle for us in terms of buying more stock. We have nowhere to put the cars."

http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2007/09/24/daily11.html

Here's some pics from a couple of weeks ago of the Annapolis (MD) Town Center at Parole project. Coming along nicely. Here's a link to the project:

http://www.ggcommercial.com/projects/parole/parole.html

Looking at the one of the hi-rises from a nearby shopping center:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2340/2233942974_bcab17930f.jpg?v=0

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2196/2233153157_29d50c071f.jpg?v=0

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2023/2233941272_a1efff41bd.jpg?v=0

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2117/2233940546_6ae96b1161.jpg?v=0

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2285/2233939982_d644a90642.jpg?v=0

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2124/2233150565_6bfc801d50.jpg?v=0

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2028/2233150033_a5335914d3.jpg?v=0

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2383/2233149089_6cb7d6d9f2.jpg?v=0

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2368/2233936312_aee3581c30.jpg?v=0

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2197/2233935552_ce3d4c4ca3.jpg?v=0[img]

[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2070/2233934948_f5dd5bbca9.jpg?v=0

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2270/2233934688_9d7f17164a.jpg?v=0

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2290/2233934520_5ab97beb0d.jpg?v=0

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2114/2233934332_595c09324c.jpg?v=0

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2047/2233145377_0a98fc582c.jpg?v=0

:)

Looking good Annapolis!!!

^^yeah, it does look good. good for annapolis, good for maryland!!

Hey hows that towne center in annapolis coming along??

Hello... Anyone? :D

Sorry it took so long, but here's some pics from the Annapolis Town Center project I took today. (There's still some construction going on, but almost half the ground floor stores are open)

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3358/3245954696_b8c8a10ba9_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3479/3245963718_53fcae3bbe_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3529/3245134955_e238b87b42_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3086/3245134605_c19c32c983_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3369/3245964438_2b1d052038_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3525/3245955780_2f692a4f68_b.jpg

The stores are going to be higher end compared to the immediate area:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3418/3245962594_28cfa8416a_b.jpg

This is what is currently across the main street from the project:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3456/3245959902_35556ee44f_b.jpg

More pics of the Center

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3426/3245954268_189feb4d8d_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3316/3245126229_6d42dd26e2_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3333/3245955018_870e3069a6_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3308/3245128735_665b54987d_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3370/3245954852_d35011dd9f_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3347/3245958932_47efce7915_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3111/3245960472_8b427ee496_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3392/3245960812_0f8d048bd6_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3494/3245961156_37d6ebd646_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3267/3245133751_9928615c8c_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3435/3245956414_b56e7bb595_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3335/3245131077_12f58825fb_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3320/3245964268_00f84b3d25_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3529/3245955300_2976430c37_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3340/3245130399_b53026a329_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3494/3245961156_37d6ebd646_b.jpg

Hope you liked the pics.:)

I just want to make a post in this thread... :lol: