Business

Inside Firaxis Games, developers for the Sparks-based studiohave already wrapped up work on their latest video game, Marvel’s Midnight Suns. Employees shuffle through a sprawling campus that includes everything from a pool table to a weight room as well as all of the tabletop games and consoles you’d imagine inside a studio that’s been around for more than 25 years.

The owners of Papi Cuisine continue to expand their business with plans to open a new restaurant in downtown Baltimore helmed by a former White House chef. Berry Clark and Alex Perez, who co-own the Afro-Latin fusion restaurant Papi Cuisine in South Baltimore and a soon-to-open location in Owings Mills, will be opening a third restaurant called Prim & Proper Cocktail & Wine Bar at 206 E. Redwood St. The historic building next door to Chesapeake Shakespeare Co. was previously home to French restaurant Chez Hugo and French-American restaurant LoCal, which closed in August.

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.