South Baltimore Business Roundup

Cross Street Seafood Market Closes

Cross Street Seafood Market has closed after nine and a half years in business at Cross Street Market in Federal Hill. Caves Valley Partners (CVP), which is redeveloping the Cross Street Market, told SouthBMore.com that they were in negotiations with Cross Street Seafood Market and were hoping to give them a permanent location in the redeveloped market, but the business decided to close. SouthBMore.com does not have any additional information as to the reason for the closing at this time.

CVP told SouthBMore.com that Cross Street Market will have a vendor selling “high-quality fresh seafood” by the time Phase One is complete. Phase One is expected to begin in the coming weeks and the entire project is aiming for a mid-2019 completion.

Aww Baby Organics Closing at the End of March 

Aww Baby Organics will be closing its 1,500 sq. ft. store at 1123 Light St. at the end of March. Aww Baby Organics opened a second location in Howard County at Historic Savage Mill last year and will be moving its inventory to that store.

Baltimore City Community College Enters MOU for Downtown Skyscraper 

Baltimore City Community College (BCCC) has entered a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with The Cordish Companies to build a 45-story tower at the school’s closed downtown location at 710 E. Lombard St. The Cordish Companies owns Power Plant Live adjacent to the site. From a BCCC press release:

On December 22, 2017, Baltimore City Community College entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) with The Cordish Companies to redevelop 1.2 acres in downtown Baltimore City on the site of the former Bard Building. This MOU is non-binding, discusses the broad terms for a future long-term land lease agreement, and represents the most significant movement forward for the property since the building’s closure in 2010.

The College selected The Cordish Companies to develop a world-class mixed-use building. At 512 feet, the 45-story modern skyscraper will surpass the 40-story Transamerica building as the tallest building in the City of Baltimore and the tallest in all of Maryland.

The soaring mixed-use project includes plans for residential, retail, and office space options. With the MOU in place, discussions continue in earnest towards a final long-term land lease agreement between the College and The Cordish Companies. Our mutual goal is to agree on those terms by the summer of 2018.

Rendering courtesy of Hord Coplan Macht

 

Federal Hill’s Key Tech Designs Product for Team USA 

Federal Hill’s Key Tech helped to design the battery back for Team USA’s heated Polo Ralph Lauren parka worn in the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. From Polo Ralph Lauren’s RL Mag:

When Team USA enters the Olympic Stadium for the opening ceremony on February 9, they’ll be dressed head-to-toe in Polo Ralph Lauren, an official outfitter of Team USA since 2008. And, despite PyeongChang’s frigid February temperatures, they’ll also be nice and warm.

Some of that warmth, no doubt, will come from the pride that goes with representing your country on the world’s largest stage. The rest? For that you can thank the limited-edition opening ceremony parka, a groundbreaking mix of iconic Polo design and cutting-edge American technology that was created specifically for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018. Thanks to an American flag, on the interior back panel, printed via a highly advanced, conductive carbon and silver ink, each jacket has the ability to augment the natural warmth of 750-fill-power down with modern technology. The water-repellent jackets are equipped with a slender battery pack with three heat settings (that lasts up to 11 hours at full charge), allowing athletes to maximize their own comfort based on outside conditions—and internal excitement.

Also from the article:

For its part, the battery pack presented its own design challenge. It must be slender and lightweight, so as not to add bulk to the parka. And it must be able to be controlled by athletes wearing gloves. To accomplish this, RL partnered with Key Tech, a high-tech design firm located in Baltimore that designed the battery pack. An NYC-based firm, Principled Design, designed the connectors that attach the battery pack to the heater in a streamlined way. “It is not about the technology but the experience of comfort,” says Principled Design’s founder and CEO Despina Papadopoulos. “The jacket looks great without the technology, but the technology brings a new layer to the experience.”

Photo courtesy of Polo Ralph Lauren

Under Armour Announces Donations to Benefit Baltimore 

Under Armour will be teaming with ESPN to fund a new initiative called RePlay. The program’s goal is to revitalize and transform vacant lots in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Baltimore into places where communities can come together for sports and recreation. From a press release:

RePlay seeks to help local residents in three cities plan and implement revitalization projects that transform vacant spaces into safe, quality places for youth and community. The initiative will direct over $400,000 in grants to local organizations that will plan and execute projects that create safe recreation spaces to exercise and play on currently vacant lots. The program will award $10,000 planning grants and up to $75,000 implementation grants to help groups working to revitalize vacant spaces in Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Baltimore.

Also from the press release:

“At Under Armour we believe innovation should be encouraged everywhere – including in our communities,” said Stacey Ullrich, senior director of Global Philanthropy. “We’re thrilled to join forces with ESPN and LISC to ignite innovation and bring the joy of sport and recreation to our communities. Because we all know that sport can inspire, unite and maybe even change the world.”

Under Armour is also teaming up with the Ravens to provide uniforms and upgraded athletic facilities in Baltimore City. From The Baltimore Sun:

Under Armour says it is outfitting more than 5,300 student athletes and coaches in the Baltimore City Public Schools with new uniforms or apparel.

The sports brand also said it will provide additional funding to upgrade the school system’s athletic and activity facilities.

Under Armour, which did not specify how much its commitment will cost, said it was part of a multimillion-dollar collaboration with the Ravens, the Fund for Educational Excellence and the InSideOut Initiative “to enrich Baltimore City school’s athletic programs.”

Baltimore Museum of Industry Opens New Exhibit 

Tomorrow Baltimore Museum of Industry will open a new exhibit called Fueling the Automobile Age. From a press release: 

America’s love affair with the automobile began in the early 1900s. But it took inexpensive, plentiful gasoline to transform desire into reality. Enter petroleum pioneers such as Louis Blaustein, whose American Oil Company grew from two horse-drawn delivery wagons into the Amoco Corporation. Together with his entrepreneurial family, Blaustein also helped bring Texas-based Crown Central Petroleum to Baltimore, where it became one of the nation’s largest independent integrated oil companies.

Opening on Friday, February 23, Fueling the Automobile Age is an original exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Industry that explores how the products and innovations of these two local oil companies helped fuel America’s automobile age – and encourages visitors to consider what technologies and innovations will fuel the next transportation age.

“As a museum exploring the industries of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, we’re excited to show how one Baltimore family made an historic impact on car culture, while we also consider how the current demand for electric cars, ride-share services, and public transit shapes a new era in transportation,” says Anita Kassof, the museum’s executive director. Inspired by the exhibition, the museum is planning a variety of public programs that will encourage visitors to consider these issues.

The exhibition explores America’s dependence on cars, growing from just 8,000 registered vehicles in 1900, to 26 million in 1930, to more than 270 million today.  Plenty of hands-on opportunities for visitors are integrated into the gallery, exploring a 1953 Packard sedan (both inside and out), playing the part of gas station attendants, and envisioning what cars of the future will look like.

This exhibition is made possible through the generosity of the Henry and Ruth Blaustein Rosenberg Foundation, Atapco, and Lord Baltimore Capital, with additional support from Clark Brands LLC, and McGuireWoods LLP.

via http://www.southbmore.com/2018/02/23/south-baltimore-business-roundup-147/