Business

Atlas Restaurant Group is keeping an eye on other landmark Fells Point properties as the Baltimore-based hospitality company continues to add to its growing portfolio. The restaurant group announced last week it will acquire the Waterfront Hotel, marking the third property in the historic neighborhood for Atlas, which also owns The Admiral’s Cup on Thames Street and The Choptank in the south shed of Broadway Market.

Wall Street is buying up homes across the country. That’s not news — but investors are continuing to gain market share amid an extremely competitive national housing market. The Business Journals analyzed data from Seattle-based Redfin Corp. (NASDAQ: RDFN), which tracked how many homes investors bought in 40 major metropolitan areas across the U.S. in the third quarter. Investors had a record quarter, buying 90,215 homes worth a combined $63.6 billion.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. plans to open a bank branch at Mondawmin Mall, a much-needed spark for an area of Baltimore that has suffered from retail closures and disinvestment. The New York-based financial giant filed an application with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in the U.S. Treasury Department for the branch location on Nov. 3. If approved, the branch will be JPMorgan Chase’s first in West Baltimore.

Patriots Glen National Golf Club in Elkton has been acquired by Baltimore developer Ray Jackson as part of his expanding Cecil County portfolio. Jackson’s Stonewall Capital bought the 214-acre property last month for an undisclosed price. The property had gone to auction with an opening bid of $500,000 also in October, but did not snag a buyer, Jackson said.

Stewart Bainum is a successful businessman (as board chair of the worldwide Choice Hotels chain), philanthropist, and former Maryland delegate and senator. Last year, he tried to buy the Baltimore Sun with the intention of turning it into a non-profit news organization focusing on local news. That effort was rebuffed by the Sun’s owners, a hedge fund called Alden Global Capital. Working with former Baltimore County Executive Ted Venetoulis, Bainum began planning a new local news operation, an on-line, multi-pronged platform that will be overseen by the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism, a not-for-profit foundation named in honor of Mr. Venetoulis, who passed away last month from pancreatic cancer.

CEO Patrik Frisk has a lot of reasons to be happy after Under Armour Inc. reported yet another strong quarter of financial results on Tuesday. The Baltimore-based sportswear maker’s profit grew 22.6% in the third quarter and sales increased 8% to $1.55 billion. Both figures came in well above Wall Street estimates. And even better, the company updated its full-year outlook to be even brighter than previously predicted.

United Therapeutics has purchased the Hampton Inn/Homewood Suites dual-brand hotel next to its Silver Spring headquarters, Dewey Steadman, head of UT’s investor relations confirmed. The purchase was completed on Oct. 5 and the hotels permanently closed this month. Steadman said the company intends to repurpose the property for offices. The building originally was built for offices before it was converted to hotel space. “The furnishings in the hotel, we’re actually going to donate to community organizations,” Steadman said. “We just started the logistics around that process.”

The Halloween weekend in Annapolis will arrive alongside a mid-Atlantic weather disturbance that will bring strong winds, rainy conditions and unusually high tides, according to a news release from the City of Annapolis. The City of Annapolis is anticipating flooding conditions in low-lying areas and opened a sandbag operation on Dock Street Thursday morning for Annapolis residents and businesses. Bags may be limited based on demand.