Business

A group of Baltimore’s largest employers announced Monday that they’re starting a campaign to encourage Maryland’s elected officials to improve the city’s transportation system. The Greater Baltimore Committee is partnering with the Greater Washington Partnership, which represents business leaders from Baltimore to Richmond, Virginia, this election year to advocate for expanding the city’s transit services as a way to make the region a stronger economic competitor compared to others.

After decades of debate and calls for reform, the thoroughbred racing industry will be governed by uniform federal regulations starting Friday, a prospect that has inspired widespread worry among Maryland horsemen, who say the rules have been rushed into place and are full of logical inconsistencies. The state’s trainers and owners generally support consistent nationwide regulations, with prominent industry figures saying the effort is overdue and likely to improve public perceptions of racing. But the devil is in the details, they warn, and the start of the process is likely to be bumpy.

Two decades ago, the town of Trappe voted overwhelmingly to grow. As a wave of suburbanization spread across Maryland’s rural Eastern Shore, the tiny community annexed more than 900 acres so a developer could build some 2,500 homes — five times more than still stand in Trappe today. Now, that vision of Trappe is just starting to become reality. Banners along what is otherwise a quiet stretch of U.S. Route 50 invite passersby to look at new homes, for sale and lease, at Lakeside at Trappe. There’s no lake just yet, but nearly a dozen homes have begun to rise from the dirt.

MacKenzie Commercial Real Estate Services LLC Friday announced it brokered the sale of 1407 Rome Road, a single-story building containing slightly more than 22,000 square feet of warehouse space in Halethorpe for $2.3 million. Andrew Meeder, SIOR and Daniel Hudak, SIOR, both senior vice presidents and principals for MacKenzie Commercial Real Estate Services represented the buyer, Ruff Roofers Inc. with the seller, Mid-Atlantic Carpenters and Training, represented by Robert Filley, Nick Pirone and Bryan Herr of Marcus & Millichap. Last month, MacKenzie brokered the sale of 1407 Parker Road, a single-story building containing 103,640 square feet of industrial/warehouse space, and in Halethorpe. The sales price was more than $10 million.

One of the defining moments of Karen Bond’s professional career came about five years ago. “For years, I had worked really hard to become president of Executive Alliance,” she said of the nonprofit dedicated to helping professional women succeed in leadership roles. At the time, Bond was taking care of her mother who had dementia along with being a mother to her daughter and having a thriving professional career. “The day of our Women of Excellence luncheon, that I had always dreamed that my mother would be able to be there and see that achievement, was the day that my caregiver didn’t show up and I was scheduled to be in front of a thousand women. I barely got there in time.”

The University of Maryland Children’s Hospital is planning a $600,000 renovation to its pediatric emergency department to accommodate the increased number of children and adolescents that need emergency psychiatric care. Construction is expected to begin this year and will focus on transforming a portion of the existing pediatric emergency department into a more private and dedicated space to triage patients experiencing a mental health emergency, the hospital announced Thursday. Plans call for four rooms for patient care, a dedicated play and occupational therapy room, a bathroom with a shower and a workstation for staff. CRGA Design is the architect for the project, which is expected to be completed by summer 2023.

MCB Real Estate unveiled plans for a 154-unit apartment building that would overlook Druid Hill Park, prompting discussion among Baltimore city’s design panel on whether the proposed building fit into the historic neighborhood. The Linden will be developed by MCB Real Estate on what today is a city-owned vacant and blighted lot. The six-story project, presented to the city’s Urban Design and Architecture Advisory Panel, or UDAAP, showed a modular, modern brick complex with three distinct sections that hold balconies and bay windows to showcase the waterfront of Druid Park Lake Drive. A 1,400-square-foot retail space will be at street level.

As a mother of four young children, Kirsten Quigley often found herself packing 20 school lunches a week — and, in doing so, using and throwing away dozens and dozens of single-use plastic baggies. It was this weekly routine that made her aware of how much plastic is tossed into landfills each year — 27 million tons in 2018, according to the Environmental Protection Agency — and led her to find a solution to replace single-use plastic bags for food storage.