Business

Following a green light from the Baltimore County Council, Pappas Seafood Co. will soon open a 7,500-square-foot crabcake distribution hub in Perry Hall. The council voted Monday night to approve a zoning change allowing the facility to open at 8801 Belair Road. Pappas staffers could move into the space within a few months, said managing partner and CFO Karen Zimmerer. Every year, Pappas ships some 3.5 million orders of its crabcakes, a noted favorite of Oprah Winfrey, Zimmerer said.

After a pair of marathon hearings, the proposed Margaritaville project moved two big steps closer to becoming a reality this week. The Mayor and Council on Monday had before them two separate issues related to the Margaritaville Hotel and Conference Center, which would encompass an entire city block downtown on the oceanside facing the Boardwalk between 13th Street and 14th Street.

About 460 new jobs are headed to Washington County, Maryland, with the expansion of global rail manufacturing company Hitachi Rail into a ground-up, $70 million plant in Hagerstown. The 307,000-square-foot factory is part of a national expansion for Pittsburgh’s Hitachi Rail and will support the company’s $2.2 billion contract to build a new fleet of 8000-series, all-electric cars for Metro operator the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger will unveil on Tuesday new legislation designed to help bring federal economic development incentives to Baltimore County’s Tradepoint Atlantic. The legislation, known as The Rust to Revitalization Act of 2022, aims to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 so that it includes a special rule for designating former industrial areas that share a border with designated “Opportunity Zones.”

Another downtown hotel has changed hands. The Kimpton Hotel Monaco Baltimore Inner Harbor recently sold Douglas Development Corp., an investment group from Washington, D.C., for $18.6 million. The group is planning to spend $6.5 million to upgrade and renovate the property at 2 N. Charles St., the firm said in a release on Monday. The seller was an affiliate of Stonehill Strategic Capital, and CBRE brokered the deal.

The Black Train Trust has scored a $100,000 investment from the Maryland Technology Development Corp. (TEDCO) to help bring its product to market this year. The Baltimore-based tech startup has built a software platform to help firms measure and improve racial equity. It bills its core product, EquiScore BI, as “the Workday for diversity, equity and inclusion professionals.”

For an industry that brings both pleasure and therapeutic sustenance to so many people, the burgeoning cannabis industry is beset with hurdles. Everything from federal regulation (or lack thereof), issues with vaping, equal access to banking, veterans’ causes, tax policies, public perception and the continued presence of the illicit (or legacy) market are among the leading causes of angst for those working both in and around marijuana legalization and reform.