Business

A controversy is now roiling a part of the Hampden neighborhood. A developer wants to level a secluded 1930 industrial property and replace it with a six-story apartment house, complete with parking and a swimming pool Added to the drama is a stout brick chimney that once served the old clothing factory’s boiler. It’s a tall smokestack where thousands of migrating chimney swifts swoop and spend the night in the late summer and again in the spring. Come morning, they take off.

Many small-business owners haven’t taken a break in 2022 or longer, and 2023 is filled with potential hurdles. About 40% of small business owners surveyed by FreshBooks said they had not taken time off in more than a year. About half of small-business owners say taking time off stresses them out and 85% said that even when they do take time off from work, they continue to check in. It’s a trend that could have significant implications. A 2021 survey by the International Business Brokers Association found burnout was becoming a major factor for owners selling their businesses. But, despite concerns about burnout and mental health, signs don’t point to those metrics improving in 2023 due to recession fears and an uncertain economy. About half of small-business owners said the reason they don’t take time off is a fear of losing income, and that’s showing during the holiday season.

Since mobile sports betting launched in Maryland before Thanksgiving, only one of the seven gambling apps that are live made a profit in the first nine days of wagering, according to a report from the Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control. BetRivers, the betting app tied to Bingo World in Brooklyn Park, made a profit of just over $28,000 between the formal launch at 9 a.m. Nov. 23 and Nov. 30 and eight hours of wagering allowed on Nov. 21. The other six sportsbooks, Barstool Sportsbook, BetMGM, Caesars, DraftKings, FanDuel and PointsBet, handled far more money but reported losses of around $38 million as they used promotional deals like free bets to attract new customers.

Plans for two apartment buildings set to replace the Locke Insulators plant at Port Covington were debated before a city design panel for the second time as the project moves toward a groundbreaking next year. The schematics by Baltimore-based Hord Coplan Macht show the six-story brick, glass and steel structures that together will hold 425 luxury apartments. The plans were presented Thursday to the Urban Design and Architecture Advisory Panel, or UDAAP, as revisions to original designs presented in late October that UDAAP members said had room for improvement. The UDAAP is overseen by the Department of Planning and must sign off on all design plans before the project moves into permitting.

Faidley Seafood’s move from Lexington Market’s old east building, where it’s now the last vendor standing, to the newly constructed south building of the renovated market will take several months longer than expected. The venerable seafood vendor, once scheduled to move into the newly finished downtown Baltimore market building by January, will delay its relocation until late spring, according to co-owner Damye Hahn and the market’s developer, Seawall. Faidley’s is “a full-sized restaurant within the market, and it’s complicated,” said Jon Constable, Seawall’s director of development. “We wanted to make sure we’re measuring twice and cutting once.” Constable said Seawall recently marked a “huge milestone” in Faidley’s relocation by submitting plans to Baltimore City to obtain a permit for the stall’s construction.

More than 3,000 graduate student workers at the Johns Hopkins University filed to unionize at the start of December. Nearly two weeks after their filing, Hopkins has filed to postpone or reschedule their hearing. Hopkins graduate students announced plans to unionize back in 2018 and have been rallying ever since. Most recently, the graduate students, as part of the group Teachers and Researchers United (TRU), gathered in October to start their union card campaign and advocate for fair wages as well as several other issues, such as on-time payment and safe workplaces. By the time the students filed to unionize, they counted 3,335 employees amongst themselves.

Demolition equipment tore down a chunk of the former Target at Mondawmin Mall on Thursday as community members and elected officials cheered, marking the start of a project expected to help revitalize West Baltimore. The CEO of construction giant Whiting-Turner personally acquired the shuttered big-box store for $1 million in March, when he announced plans to invest millions more and work with neighborhood leaders to transform it into a community hub.

It was around 2 a.m. three years ago when Keith Mario Luckey identified himself as a police officer during a dispute outside a Baltimore County bar, drew a gun and fatally shot a man. Luckey was a Maryland Air National Guard police officer at the time, although he was off duty that morning. He left the national guard months later and entered the sparsely regulated field of private security.