Business

Baltimore shoppers have a long love affair with Lexington Market, and for good reason. This culinary institution is now reinventing itself but always has been a noisy and rambunctious destination, and is about as Baltimore as it gets. Lexington Market was — and is — a genuine gathering spot. It was mobbed with buyers when Baltimore’s population peaked, in the 900,000 range.

Boca Raton, Florida-based Terran Orbital, which went public earlier this year, soared in early Monday trading after Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed Martin said it would invest $100 million in the company. Terran Orbital makes small satellites and has NASA contracts. It said it will use the investment to expand manufacturing. The Strategic Cooperation Agreement with Lockheed runs through 2035. It’s the second investment Lockheed has made in the company.

On a steamy summer morning, hundreds of business owners, lawyers, lobbyists and government contractors packed into a hotel ballroom near BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport. They were there to hear about the state’s plans to find a new contractor to run the concessions operations — food, drink, retail and other hospitality services — at the busy transportation hub. “The purpose is to improve on a very good airport concession and make it exceptional,” Morris Williams III, manager of the Commercial Business Activities Section in the Office of Commercial Management at the Maryland Aviation Administration, told those assembled at the hotel.

Billionaire Elon Musk is already floating major changes for Twitter — and faces major hurdles as he begins his first week as owner of the social-media platform. Twitter’s new owner fired the company’s board of directors and made himself the board’s sole member, according to a company filing Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

After November’s elections, recreational marijuana could be legal in nearly half the country. The decisions in Arkansas, Maryland, Missouri, North Dakota and South Dakota will come just a few weeks after the Biden administration said it would pardon thousands of people with federal felony convictions for simple marijuana possession. With the landscape around marijuana evolving across the nation — and coinciding with the rise of remote work that disperses a company’s talent across the nation — experts say employers need to stay abreast of marijuana law changes and update their policies to avoid running afoul of shifting laws. Employment law attorneys say many companies are softening their stance on marijuana or tweaking drug-testing policies.

Blaze Pizza, a fast-casual pizza chain that earned early backing from LeBron James, said Thursday it is opening three new locations in Prince George’s County. The Pasadena, California-based chain specializes in customizable made-to-order pizzas created in a brick oven. The three new locations will join four other Blaze restaurants already in Maryland — College Park, Laurel, Towson and Westminster. Kevyn Scott of Gome Restaurant Group is the franchisee of the new Prince George’s restaurants. The exact locations of the new restaurants were not revealed in an announcement from the chain. Scott also operates two Charleys Philly Steaks restaurants in Maryland. Ed Yancey, chief development officer at Blaze Pizza, said in a statement the company is looking to add qualified franchisees to continue growing the brand.

The Greater Baltimore Committee and the Baltimore Development Corporation Friday selected 12 businesses to receive the 2022 Mayor’s Business Recognition Award, which honors organizations that have demonstrated significant leadership and service to improve the quality of life in Baltimore. Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott will be a featured speaker at the 48th annual event, scheduled for Dec. 14 at 11:30 a.m. The event will be held in-person for the first time since 2019 at Renaissance Hotel Baltimore. The annual awards are given for specific activities that have significantly benefited Baltimore. Examples of projects and activities this year’s award winners initiated include: hosting STEM events for future engineers; providing free internet access and other tech resources to families during the pandemic to assist with medical needs; and developing collaborative community efforts to support critical food distribution programs.