Business

Blink Charging Co., which makes electric vehicle charging stations, is embarking on an expansion of its Bowie manufacturing facility that will grow its production capacity. The Miami Beach, Florida, company (NASDAQ: BLNK) is investing $49 million to add 30,000 square feet to the 27,000-square-foot former SemaConnect Inc. facility. Blink bought SemaConnect and the property, 4961 Tesla Drive, for $200 million in 2022.

LifeBridge Health officials said they have halted plans to develop a 22-acre health care campus next to the Pimlico Race Course to give the state more time to figure out the future of the troubled historic race track. The health system that operates Sinai Hospital in Northwest Baltimore also may move a $100 million ambulatory services building planned as the centerpiece for the campus out of the development altogether.

William Sterling moved his Saturday Morning Cafe to Little Italy in the midst of the pandemic. Businesses struggled to attract patrons to the beloved city neighborhood. But Sterling said the decision to depart downtown for this ethnic enclave couldn’t have worked out better. Sterling is among the optimists who see a bright future for Little Italy even amid the dramatic changes to the neighborhood’s business and residential life.

She had to say something. Speaker after speaker at the Prince George’s County Council meeting had just railed against the very business that Chante Goodwin, 35, hoped to launch as a Black woman intent on joining the green rush ushered in when Maryland legalized adult cannabis sales. One county resident compared dispensaries to sex shops. “What happened to just say no?” another asked, referencing a Reagan-era slogan on drug prevention.

Candice Bruno was excited when she saw the JumboFresh Supermarket sign on the former Price Rite building in Southwest Baltimore. For nearly a year, the building in the Mount Clare Junction shopping center has been empty, and Bruno and others have had to go outside the neighborhood for groceries. “It was an important force in the neighborhood that took care of many people, especially lower-income and [those with] ethnic backgrounds,” said Bruno, the owner of Old Major bar and event space in Pigtown.

A cold, rainy afternoon didn’t dampen the spirit of Talbot County’s Minority Business Resource Fair, with the event highlighted by a heartfelt presentation and invitation for participants to receive help from the Maryland Governor’s Office for Small, Minority and Women Business Affairs Special Secretary Yolanda “Maria” Martinez, who made a special appearance at the event.

The secretary of the Maryland Department of Agriculture, an 87-year-old retired veterinarian and a master craft brewer walk into a taproom. No, it’s not the beginning of a lame joke: It was part of the guest list at Heavy Seas Beer in Baltimore County at a recent celebration for the release of a beer brewed with the Monocacy hop, a genetically unique plant that’s believed to be the only hop native to Maryland.

Slutty Vegan, the Atlanta-based burger chain with Baltimore roots, will touch down in the Baltimore Peninsula next year. Founder Aisha “Pinky” Cole plans to open a location of her uber-popular vegan restaurant in the Rye Street Market, one of five new buildings that have recently cropped up on the 235-acre South Baltimore development site, formerly known as Port Covington.