Business

FX Network’s ‘The Bear’ feels perfectly suited for our times, tackling topics like mental health, toxic kitchen workplaces and the clash of elevated and casual-dining worlds. Atlas Restaurant Group, which operates high-end establishments like Maximón and Bygone in the Four Seasons Hotel Baltimore is at the polar opposite of the dining spectrum from greasy spoons like “The Beef.” This week, spokesman Joe Sweeney announced the company will be taking over a 10,000-square-foot space next to the Waterfront Marriott that was previously occupied by Fleming’s Steakhouse, which shuttered in 2020.

A quartet of local nonprofits are slated to renew leases at Stanton Community Center on Washington Street. For $1 a year, the Annapolis Arts District, Luminis Health, Anne Arundel Workforce Development Corporation and We Care and Friends all plan to continue renting from the City of Annapolis and offering services at the former school for Black residents, which was rededicated as a community center in 1975. Two more nonprofits — Street Angels Project and Community Action Agency of Anne Arundel County — also were lined up to receive nearly-free space, but the city has put their leases on hold after learning of a dispute between the two organizations.

Annapolis-based Trident Marina Group has bought out a smaller local maritime firm, transferring the ownership of four marinas in Maryland, Washington, D.C. and Virginia to a company owned by Annapolis mega-developer Jeremy Parks. Trident announced Friday in a news release that it completed a merger with Coastal Properties Management, Inc. last month. The four marinas now in Trident hands are Bowleys Marina in Middle River, Fort Washington Marina on the Potomac River in Prince George’s County, Diamond Teague Piers on the Anacostia River in Washington, D.C. and Belmont Bay Harbor on the Potomac in Woodbridge, Virginia.

St. Mary’s County’s third-largest employer, a defense contractor that employs more than 900 people in the county of just under 114,000 residents, is leaving the area. DynCorp International, which was acquired in late 2020 by Amentum, a Germantown-based federal contractor, had served the Patuxent River Naval Air Station for more than 48 years, according to Amentum’s website. But few, if any, jobs will be lost; the company’s contract in the area, doing maintenance on five squadrons of aircrafts known as the Naval Test Wing Atlantic, has been taken over by another contractor, The Vertex Company, that county officials anticipate will maintain all 937 employees. 

A Baltimore nonprofit that develops, maintains and manages affordable housing properties for city residents who are at risk of homelessness stopped paying rents for several clients enrolled in a federally funded housing assistance program. Labeled as a highly complex and unusual case of missing money among those impacted, the situation involves as much as $2.2 million in grant funding administered via the Mayor’s Office of Homeless Services from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development during the coronavirus pandemic.

The future of soccer in Baltimore could include a 10,000-seat stadium and United Soccer League men’s and women’s professional teams. Mayor Brandon Scott requested the Maryland Stadium Authority conduct a study to “determine the feasibility of a potential soccer facility,” the Mayor’s Office said in a statement Thursday. The study, which was approved by the stadium authority’s board Tuesday, is just the first step in what would likely be a yearslong process to bring the venue and teams to Charm City. Port Covington is one potential site.

Citing inflation, problems with hiring and retaining employees, and supply-chain issues, business leaders in Maryland and across the country are pessimistic about the economy in the coming year, according to a survey from JPMorgan Chase. Only 19% of business leaders are optimistic about the economy over the next year, the lowest figure in the survey’s 12-year history. A year ago, 75% of business leaders said they were optimistic about the year ahead.