Former hotel tower in Downtown Baltimore headed to auction as owner seeks new financing
The former Embassy Suites Inner Harbor Hotel downtown will hit the auction block next month as its owner seeks to reset his financing to convert the tower into apartments. The 37-story building at 222 St. Paul Place will go to auction at 11 a.m. on Sept. 20 on the front steps of the Clarence M. Mitchell Courthouse. A $300,000 deposit is required to bid, according to Alex Cooper Auctioneers, which is heading the sale.
Opinion: Retailers line their pockets with taxpayer dollars in Anne Arundel County
At a time when prices remain sky-high and local families are scrounging to make ends meet, we should all come together in a sense of common good to deliver relief. Instead, the Anne Arundel County Council took the bait, raising costs on struggling residents in the name of green policy that lines retailers’ pockets.
Moore says Orioles talks can produce a plan to redevelop Camden Yards area, as well as a stadium lease
Gov. Wes Moore said Wednesday that negotiations with the Orioles can produce not only a new stadium lease binding the team to Baltimore for years, but a redevelopment road map benefiting the city and state. The governor also predicted the club he adores will host World Series games this fall. “For longtime Orioles fans, this is such a gratifying year, because I really do believe — and it’s not just because I’m the governor — I really do believe we’re going to have World Series baseball in Baltimore,” the Democrat said after attending a Mass in Montgomery County tied to the upcoming observance of Labor Day.
Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks Opposes the Proposed Townhouse Moratorium
We Need to be Smart About New Housing
Dear Prince Georgians:
Today we voiced our opposition to CB-050-2023 and also plan to oppose CB-052-2023 when it is heard. Together, these bills will put a two-year moratorium on building townhomes in areas except transit-oriented development locations. This moratorium will eliminate opportunity, negatively impact our local economy, and harm the very people it claims to help.
Legislative leaders working on bill to move Maryland 529 to Treasurer, wind down pre-paid tuition program
Legislative leaders are planning to introduce a bill next week that would shift oversight of Maryland’s beleaguered college savings plan to the state treasurer’s office and wind down pre-paid college tuition plans. Sen. President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) said during a Friday morning press briefing that conversations about the best way to handle dysfunction at the Maryland 529 plan have been taking place across the legislative chambers and top leaders will be taking up the offer made by Treasurer Dereck Davis (D) to move the program into his office.
Baltimore has a vacant housing crisis. Could a land bank help solve it?
Bree Jones walked into a three-story rowhouse in Harlem Park, stepping on bare wooden boards and past exposed joists — the bones of a rebuilt house — and felt proud. It doesn’t look like much now. But a year ago, it was rubble and trash inside a vacant shell. In two months, a couple plans to move into the finished house, helping to repopulate this West Baltimore neighborhood. “It’s a labor of love,” Jones said. “It’s taken everything. Every ounce of my brainpower, my willpower over the last two years.” That’s partly because Jones, who runs the nonprofit development firm Parity, had to do something many municipalities across the country already do for developers: acquiring and bundling vacant properties, a process Jones calls “land banking.”
‘It’s not over’: The state may be closing its Baltimore mass testing and vaccination site, but COVID fight continues
They’ve been in the trenches together for the past several years and soon would move on. The war might not be over, but this phase was. “It’s bittersweet,” Dr. Mindy Kantsiper said Friday as she surveyed the state’s largely empty COVID testing, treatment and vaccination site in Baltimore. She and Dr. Charles “Chuck” Callahan, who together led the site, visited and reminisced with staff in advance of its closing Saturday. There were hugs and reflections of a time when supplies were limited, and long lines of people circled the temporary facility on a parking lot at the State Center complex in Midtown Baltimore.
Commentary: Black journalists faced wartime censorship when they challenged injustice
In the spring of 1919, nearly six months after World War I ground to a halt, a largely forgotten event in Black history, a story that all schoolchildren — and journalists — should know, began to unfold. At the center of this was W.E.B. DuBois, whose legacy is remembered during Black History Month and the commemoration of the 155th anniversary of his birth. In late April of that year, 100,000 copies of Crisis, the magazine of the NAACP, were locked in a back room of New York City’s main post office. The order to delay the mailing of the May issue of the civil rights organization’s publication came from Robert A. Bowen, a mid-level federal official who headed a censorship office in the Department of Justice.
Opinion: Lessons learned from Boston could shape a more collaborative process on I-495 toll lanes project
There has been a long running controversy about the value of adding toll lanes to portions of I-270 and I-495. Many options and alternatives have been proposed in place of present plans, but the approach driven by controversy has been unsystematic – lacking a serious dialogue. In contrast, I was recently on a Zoom call that celebrated the 50th anniversary of the November 30, 1972, decision by the Republican Governor of Massachusetts Frank Sargent to eliminate all the proposed urban highways in the Boston region except for one in construction and substitute mass transit. In addition, associated with that decision was a successful bipartisan campaign to open the federal Highway Trust Fund to permit mass transit funding.
Women’s Caucus backing package of bills focused on reproductive health, criminal justice and economic issues
For what is believed to be the first time in 40 years, the Maryland General Assembly Women’s Caucus has taken an official position to prioritize reproductive rights legislation. “That is where the fight is, and that is where the Women’s Caucus will be,” Chair Lesley Lopez (D), who represents Montgomery County in the House of Delegates, said. The caucus will back a package of four bills related to reproductive health because they “protect abortion rights, protect women, and protect Maryland.” Chief among them is a bill from House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones (D-Baltimore County) that would enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution, if approved by voters at the ballot box in 2024.
