Business

Seasonal employees will find more beds to lay their heads in Ocean City this summer season. Nevertheless, the town’s workforce housing crisis is far from over. In recent years, the resort town has struggled to provide enough housing for workers, contributing to the hospitality industry facing drastic staff shortages. “Employee housing is directly tied to the economy of Ocean City,” said Glenn Irwin, executive director of the Ocean City Development Corp.

A new apartment building that is part of a neighborhood revitalization effort opened up to the Park Heights community on Thursday.  Property developer Pennrose, city and state officials, and the non-profit group Park Heights Renaissance cut the ribbon on the Renaissance Row apartment building after two years of construction. It brings 84 new affordable housing units and 2,300 square feet of office space to the area.

Annapolis Town Center announced it’s adding about a half dozen new tenants to its roster of stores in the coming months, including Pottery Barn and Williams Sonoma. The two national retailers will open in late fall 2022, said Anthony Henry, general manager of Annapolis Town Center. Warby Parker, an eyewear brand, is slated to open next month, he said.

Marc Weller is taking his lessons learned at Port Covington to other large-scale projects across the United States — resorts, public green spaces, event venues and even a winery. His company, Weller Development, was replaced on Monday as head of the 235-acre South Baltimore project by a new team of master developers and investors with New York-based MAG Partners and San Francisco-based MacFarlane Partners. They abruptly took over the $5.5 billion development at the behest of Port Covington’s two major investors — Under Armour founder Kevin Plank and the Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group — and are focused on marketing and leasing. So far, no office or retail leases have been signed at the project.

After launching amid the pandemic, 1501 Health unveiled its incubator space to the public on Tuesday, showcasing an office designed to support startups developing new medical technologies. The roughly 10,000-square-foot office at 1501 S. Clinton St. comes equipped with model clinics, where clinicians and founders can work together to figure out how technology can be integrated into patient care. The equipment can also help startups understand how data can be used within a digital medical records system, so providers are not burdened with a separate data source that requires more work to review, said Pothik Chatterjee, assistant vice president of innovation and research at LifeBridge Health.