Business

Under a new combined proposal with Washington, Baltimore would host 2026 FIFA World Cup matches, boosting the city’s chances of bringing the world’s most viewed sporting event to M&T Bank Stadium. U.S. Soccer, the sport’s governing body, had asked the cities earlier this month to collaborate on a “re-imagined” joint bid, reportedly over concerns about the viability of FedEx Field as a World Cup venue. As part of the joint bid that city officials announced Thursday, Washington would hold a fan festival on the National Mall.

Vivo Living, a full-service private real estate investment and property management company in El Segundo, California, Thursday announced it will remodel the former Holiday Inn and Radisson towers in downtown Baltimore into a multifamily property. Located in close proximity to the Baltimore Convention Center, Royal Farms Arena, Camden Yards, various courthouses and public transit lines at the intersection of the Inner Harbor and Financial District of Baltimore, the acquisition represents Vivo’s sustainability approach to reposition functionally obsolete properties into reasonably-priced lifestyle residential housing.

The University of Maryland Medical System announced Thursday that it is partnering with a local firm to build a solar energy farm in Baltimore to provide power to its hospital system, employees and residents. Billed as an environmental and equity effort, the project with Baltimore-based WeSolar Inc. would produce 8 megawatts of power from a community solar farm.

Around 11 p.m. March 13, the Ever Forward did not turn with the Craighill Channel as it should have. It exited the channel at 13 knots, entered shallow water and quickly became stuck in the bay bottom. The grounding took about 90 seconds; the fallout could take years. After spending 35 days stuck in the muck of the Chesapeake Bay, the Ever Forward, a 1,096-foot, 131,420-ton cargo ship, was refloated Sunday morning and towed to an anchorage near Annapolis, where divers assessed the hull for damage Monday.

Under Armour has extended its 10-year partnership with golfer Jordan Spieth through December 2029. The Baltimore-based sports apparel maker announced the four-year extension this week after the Under Armour athlete earned his 13th PGA Tour title Sunday with a win at RBC Heritage in Hilton Head, South Carolina. It was Spieth’s second consecutive Easter Sunday win.

Anne Arundel County finalized the $3 million purchase of undeveloped Severn land that it plans to convert into a park and later make available for a new school. The County Council voted unanimously Monday night to approve the terms of the acquisition. A feasibility study of the undeveloped property concluded the two parcels, totaling 30 acres, can be made into a park with athletic fields and walking trails and, down the road, could be the site of a secondary school for west county, which has experienced rapid population increases, officials say.

Amazon.com Inc. is one-fifth of the way to the minimum number jobs the company committed to fill at its second headquarters in Arlington, one of the tech giant’s top hiring locations. As of Wednesday, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) had hired 5,000 employees who are assigned to HQ2, said John Schoettler, the company’s vice president of global real estate and facilities. Amazon representatives declined to say how many of the 5,000 were hired locally.

Federal Realty Investment Trust (NYSE: FRT), a Bethesda-based REIT, is in the early stages of plans to redevelop part of Federal Plaza Shopping Center in Rockville into mixed-use. The 6.5-acre parcel, dubbed Federal Plaza West, comprises the western part of the shopping center. It’s located at 1776 E. Jefferson St., a little over a mile north of the Red Line’s White Flint Metro station. It’s currently occupied by a retail building, which an application document says is “mostly vacant,” but which Federal’s website lists as home to Micro Center, an electronics store, TJ Maxx, Planet Fitness and Dollar Tree.

In 2012, Elliott Dennis Kleinman used his management position to execute a fraudulent billing scheme, according to the Maryland U.S. Attorney’s Office. Wednesday, he pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Baltimore to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and tax evasion, in connection with a kickback scheme that defrauded his employer of more than $20 million. Kleinman, 68, of Bel Air, was a longtime employee of a family-owned global business headquartered in New York that has manufacturing facilities in Belcamp and Abingdon.