Business

A vacant, historic mansion in Reservoir Hill could be redeveloped into a food hall under a new plan by Rockville developers. Marbray & Co. Realty LLC was recently selected as the frontrunner from a request for proposals to redevelop the 230-year-old, city-owned Birckhead Estate, also known as the Birckhead-Bond House or Mount Royal Mansion, at 2001 Park Ave. The three-story stone structure has an eclectic and interesting history, including once being owned by Orioles owner Peter G. Angelos.

Northrop Grumman Corp. is expanding its ability to produce hypersonic weapons for the U.S. government with the help of an $8.8 million contract to improve technology at a plant in Elkton. Funding through a division of the Air Force Research Laboratory will enable the aerospace and defense giant to shorten manufacturing time and boost affordability for hypersonic weapons in production, Northrop Grumman said Tuesday. Hypersonic weapons travel at between 5 and 25 times the speed of sound and are highly maneuverable either as hypersonic cruise missiles, which use air-breathing engines called scramjets to reach high speed, or hypersonic glide vehicles, missiles that are launched.

The Cordish Companies’ Live Casino & Hotel Maryland Tusday announced the property has earned the highest recognition across several major categories in the Casino Player Best of Slots 2022 Awards, including the Best Overall Casino award. In addition to Best Overall Casino award, the AAA Four Diamond-rated luxury hotel, gaming and entertainment destination took home 10 other first-place prizes in the Maryland casino category, including: Best Progressive Slots; Best Video Poker; Best Penny Slots; Best Quarter Slots; Best Dollar Slots; Best Variety of Slots; Best High-end Slot Area; Best Slot Club; Best Slot Club Promotions; and Best Customer Service.

The facade of the shuttered Target at Mondawmin Mall is scheduled to be razed on Thursday as a $25 million plan to turn the vacant store into a community center for the surrounding West Baltimore neighborhoods hits the midway point. “We are plowing forward,” Tim Regan, CEO of Whiting-Turner Construction Co., said this week. “This is an effort to lift this community up.” Regan and Calvin G. Butler Jr., incoming CEO of Exelon Corp., have spent the past several years putting together the idea and later a blueprint for the new center with the help of community leaders. Regan announced in March that he had personally bought the Target store property for $1 million to make the community center happen.

Morgan State University is launching a renovation of two student residence halls as part of a long-term effort to expand and improve student housing in the wake of a massive enrollment spike at the historically Black university. Morgan State will spend $30 million on a complete renovation of its Baldwin and Cummings residential halls, transforming them from 1950s-era facilities into more modern living spaces for around 200 students.

Belvedere Square, the North Baltimore dining and shopping destination, has been sold to a Bethesda firm, the commercial real estate firm KLNB announced Monday. The market and shopping center at the southeast corner of York Road and Northern Parkway is made up of four buildings totaling more than 100,000 square feet along both sides of East Belvedere Avenue. Belvedere Square currently has 35 tenants, including kiosks and a food hall, KLNB said in a news release.

Marylanders wagered more than $186 million on sporting events on their mobile devices last month, with a third of the bets coming from money doled out in free promotional offers to hook new gamblers. Maryland Lottery and Gaming said Monday it saw a total of $186.08 million worth of sports bets placed on mobile devices after sportsbooks went live Nov. 23. An additional $32.98 million was generated by brick-and-mortar sports gambling tickets in November.

The Greene Turtle is headed back to Baltimore. The Columbia-based sports bar and restaurant chain has plans to open a new outpost at the Canton Crossing shopping center early next year, Greene Turtle CEO Geo Concepcion said Monday. The Canton location, expected to open by the end of February, will take over a restaurant space that used to house On the Border Mexican Grill & Cantina. It will be the sports bar’s first presence in the city since a Fells Point location closed in 2020.