Business

A Columbia artificial intelligence company has won a $14.8 million contract with the U.S. Army just weeks after a major shakeup of its C-suite and just over a month after it laid off 7% of its staff due to financial difficulties. BigBear.ai will work with Denver-based Palantir Technologies to replace aging, out-of-date systems with an automated platform to provide data for up to 160,000 Army users and allow them to make decisions more efficiently. BigBear.ai specializes in the government, manufacturing and health care sectors, and previously worked with the U.S Army in 2021.

510 Johnnys, a defunct Harford County pub known for its live music, is heading back to the auction block after negotiations with a buyer didn’t lead to a sale. Paul Cooper, of Alex Cooper Auctioneers Inc., said there is still a buyer interested in the property at 510 Marketplace Drive in Bel Air but added, “we wanted to give it another opportunity in the marketplace.” Cooper said he couldn’t disclose more information about the buyer or what transpired with the talks in August. The auction of the Bel Air sports bar and restaurant’s long-term lease as well as furniture, fixtures and equipment ended up being postponed in the final hours of bidding.

BetRivers mobile app, part of Rush Street Interactive, is currently legal in 12 states and will soon be adding BetRivers Sportsbook Maryland to its growing industry footprint. BetRivers was the first online sportsbook to launch in four states, including Pennsylvania, and has a “first” to claim in Maryland, as well. Due to its partnership with Bingo World, BetRivers operates the first non-casino retail sportsbook in the state.

Despite a plummeting stock market, rising inflation and the Biden administration’s college loan relief plan, Maryland financial advisers say they are not adjusting their counsel about saving for education. Their message to clients? Stay the course. “Our advice really has not changed,” said Ryan Staton, of StatonWalsh in Timonium. Inflation in particular does not faze him. “The cost of college has outpaced inflation for a very long time,” Staton said. “We’ve always educated clients on that. You have to keep in mind that you’re saving for a moving target, one that moves at a much faster rate than your average, everyday spending.”

Work on a new residential enclave at Port Covington overseen by local developer Mark Sapperstein will begin next month with the demolition of the former Locke Insulators building. Sapperstein said Thursday the nearly 619,000-square-foot industrial complex next to Nick’s Fish House will be razed starting Oct. 15. The ambitious demo of the manufacturing plant, which was shut down in 2017, will take place “piece by piece” and ultimately make way for the first of 297 townhouses set to break ground in May by DRB Homes. Rockville-based DRB announced its partnership with Sapperstein’s 28 Walker this month and pledged the new community will allow access to the Middle Branch waterfront not available for 100 years.

Annapolis City Council members said Thursday that the city will issue summons for two property management companies accused of grossly neglecting their apartment communities. Representatives from Fairstead Management Inc. and Enterprise Residential LLC, the property managers of Woodside Gardens and Admiral Oaks, respectively, failed to show at the council’s Housing and Human Welfare committee meeting as requested on Thursday. “I want the record to state clearly that Fairstead, representing Woodside Gardens, refused communications until the last minute,” Ward 6 Alderman DaJuan Gay said, before invoking his subpoena authority as the committee’s chair. “I haven’t heard a single thing from Admiral Oaks or their property management company.”