Business

General Motors’ newest Chevrolet Corvette will be the most powerful version of the American sports car ever produced — and it’s not even close. The Detroit automaker said Thursday the 2025 Chevy Corvette ZR1 will be powered by a twin-turbocharged, 5.5-liter, V8 engine capable of more than 1,000 horsepower — a first for Corvette — and 828 foot-pounds of torque, placing it among the ranks of supercars that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Pennsylvania-based Link Bank will open a regional headquarters in Annapolis to give it a larger presence in Greater Baltimore as it continues its push throughout the mid-Atlantic. Link’s new 4,200-square-foot area headquarters will be located at 900 Bestgate Road in Annapolis’ Parole neighborhood. The decision to open the Annapolis hub comes less than a year after Link acquired Salisbury-based Partners Bancorp, the parent company of Maryland’s Bank of Delmarva and Virginia’s Partners Bank.

A Lockheed Martin office building built in Rockville in 1984 is the latest suburban office property offered up for residential conversion. JLL is marketing the 134,000-square-foot building and its surface parking lot at 1 Curie Court as an office-to-townhome redevelopment opportunity that’s “rare” for the property’s roughly 7.8-acre size and location just off I-270, according to marketing materials.

A Friendly Bread, a Baltimore-based artisan bread and frozen grilled cheese company, is moving into a new 17,000-square-foot facility, marking a major expansion from its shared coworking production space at B-More Kitchen. Owner Lane Levine said the 17,000-square-foot facility, which includes 5,000 square feet of frozen storage space and large dry and refrigerated storage areas, is much larger than A Friendly Bread’s current needs.

SuperBook Sports, one of the Baltimore Orioles’ most visible sponsors, has stopped its sports gambling operations in Maryland and seven other states after failing to gain a strong footing in those markets. The company emailed customers on Monday that it will no longer accept bets, deposits or new accounts in Maryland and the other states but will continue to operate in its home state of Nevada.

Mortgage interest rates eased very slightly last week, but not enough to get today’s potential homebuyers off the fence. The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($766,550 or less) decreased to 6.82% from 6.87%, with points increasing to 0.59 from 0.57 (including the origination fee) for loans with a 20% down payment, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

A new grant program launched in Frederick, Maryland, aims to support minority and women-owned small businesses. “The program is designed to support and empower,” said Shana Knight, community engagement specialist with the city of Frederick. “The thought process behind it is that the No. 1 issue for minority and women-owned small businesses is access to capital, so we just want to provide opportunities for that, that will allow these businesses to grow,” Knight added.