Business

For Jonathon Heyward, the new music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the key word for success is community. At a news conference last week at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, Heyward addressed a small group of news media about what can be expected of his first season in the driver’s seat. A priority of that, he said, will be a focus on “programming that is relevant to the community,” both in “having familiar faces in the community on our stages” as well as “pre- and post-concert experiences that relate to the community.

Under Armour Inc. wants to expand its program that gives Baltimore City student athletes the resources they need to succeed now that the local sportswear maker has completed renovations of all 21 of the city’s public high school gyms and outfitted all its varsity teams. Executives with the company shared that message Friday from the gymnasium of Edmonson-Westside High School, where a crowd of high school athletes, city officials and others were gathered to celebrate six years of Under Armour’s Project Rampart and talk about where the program will go in the future.

Hall of Famer Bobby Dandridge led the Norfolk State men’s basketball program to the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association title in 1968 in Greensboro, North Carolina, and had attended conference tournaments in Norfolk, Virginia, Charlotte, North Carolina, and — for the past two years — Baltimore. “The Greyhound,” as Dandridge was nicknamed, said Baltimore has proved to be a worthy host after the CIAA elected to move the tournament from Charlotte after the 2019-20 season.

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration is crafting a $1 billion economic development grant program to help bring jobs to distressed communities — and it’s looking for your help. The $1 billion “Recompete Pilot Program” was originally authorized by Congress in 2022 as part of the CHIPS Act passed by Congress that poured tens of billions of dollars into semiconductor production and manufacturing. The grant though, is unrelated to semiconductors, and its purpose is to “target long-term comprehensive economic development and job creation in selected areas by supporting workforce development, business development, and infrastructure activities,” according to the Commerce Department.

Baltimore City’s liquor board on Thursday approved a marketplace liquor license for the Village of Cross Keys, a move that will enable patrons of restaurants at the complex to move about the courtyard with drinks in hand. Caves Valley Partners, the center’s owner, hopes to attract new restaurants by allowing them to go through a stream-lined liquor board approval process. This type of license has been approved for Lexington Market, Cross Street Market and other new projects where multiple eateries are located.

After a failed merger with OceanFirst Financial Corp. last year, Maryland’s Partners Bancorp has entered into a $167.8 million merger deal with Camp Hill, Pennsylvania-based startup Linkbancorp. The combined bank holding company will operate under the Linkbancorp (NASDAQ: LNKB) name, and the combined bank subsidiary will operate as Linkbank. The two subsidiaries of Partners, the Bank of Delmarva and Virginia Partners Bank, will operate as Linkbank and focus on Link’s regional business model.

The Greene Turtle will soon offer customers an opportunity to cast sports wagers while chowing down on wings and fries. The Columbia-based bar and restaurant chain is gearing up to be among the first small retail locations for sports betting in Maryland, where wagering so far has been limited to casinos, mobile apps and a few venues, such as Bingo World in Brooklyn Park, that were included in a state law establishing the parameters for sports betting.

Working much faster than anticipated, Valerie Connelly, vice president of government affairs for Choptank Electric, announced to the Eastern Shore Delegation the company is moving ahead completing two state expansion grants almost a year ahead of schedule, bringing fiber connectivity to “more than 2,300 unserved members.”