Business

Two Anne Arundel County power plants — Brandon Shores and H.A. Wagner — have announced their plans to transition from burning coal to mostly burning oil in the years ahead, and they received a preliminary green light from the Maryland Public Service Commission on Wednesday. Environmental advocates say the plans to abandon coal-burning are commendable, but that they’re concerned by the plants’ proposed switch to burning oil, also a highly polluting fossil fuel.

The Cordish Companies on Wednesday unveiled plans for a major expansion of its coworking brand, Spark Flex. Based on the success of Spark Baltimore, which is 100% occupied, Spark Flex will launch this spring in the Pier IV office building in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. The Spark Flex expansion of Spark coworking is a continuation of Cordish’s investment in downtown Baltimore and its focus to support innovative workspace solutions for dynamic, growing organizations.

Patrik Frisk served in the Swedish Army and as a peacekeeping soldier for the United Nations. His goal at Under Armour is to grow the sportswear maker’s revenue so it has an even 50-50 split between its North American and international businesses. Those are just a couple of the details Frisk revealed in his first post on LinkedIn after recently joining the business-focused social media platform. Frisk has largely remained a man of mystery since succeeding founder Kevin Plank as CEO of Baltimore-based Under Armour in 2020.

For several years, Salisbury manufacturer Toroid has experienced difficulties in hiring new workers. However, since the coronavirus pandemic began, those challenges have only magnified, according to Romona Fontaine, vice president of operations. This problem isn’t unique to Toroid: A worker shortage has swept the nation.

M&T Bank is transforming 17 Baltimore-area branches into a new multicultural banking center format in a bid to expand services in racially and ethnically diverse communities. The bank also will invest in a “community empowerment center” in West Baltimore, where it will offer ATM, account opening, lending, mortgage and other banking services, the bank announced Thursday.

Maryland’s grocery stores are struggling to keep products on their shelves as well as workers amid the surge in Omicron and ongoing supply chain issues. The winter weather blunder has also played a role in the stripped selection of food and other products usually in abundance at local grocery stores. The variant is the cause of a food supply chain shortage in the Baltimore area, according to Ravi Srinivasan, an associate professor with Loyola University Maryland.

Baltimore will scale back recycling collection to every other week due to massive staffing shortages during the coronavirus pandemic, city officials announced Wednesday. The move, which takes effect next Tuesday, comes amid a combination of increased trash following the holiday season and a pandemic-driven shortage of workers that has left the city, at times, with as little as half of its staff on the job.