Business

I moved to Hampden on the promise of jump scares. Like all snoopy reporters I know, I was curious about where I would be living and soon learned the residence once belonged to an undertaker. The man was said to have installed one of the village’s first telephones into a funeral parlor. I figured his commitment to communication and familiarity with death all but guaranteed me a haunted living arrangement.

A. Duie Pyle, a privately-owned transportation and logistics provider headquartered in West Chester, Pennsylvania, has acquired a 29-acre site within North East Commerce Center, a 100-acre business community in Cecil County, owned and developed by Stewart Properties and St. John Properties Inc. The purchase price was $2.195 million.

More than a decade ago, Starbucks bought its first coffee farm, in Costa Rica. Now the coffee giant has added two more to its portfolio. The Seattle-based company said Thursday that it’s invested in another farm in Costa Rica and its first in Guatemala in the hopes of getting closer to its goal of protecting its coffee supply from climate change.

When longshoremen walked off the job in Baltimore nearly 50 years ago, their target was clear: the shipping container. For centuries, workers went on ships and hauled out a mishmash of goods and packages, a backbreaking job that required many hands. The standardized container revolutionized the shipping industry, putting many longshoremen out of work.

A coalition of consumer advocates wants Maryland utility regulators to do away with a method of setting rates used by Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. that covers multiple years, saying the process has led to excessive rate hikes. So-called “multiyear rate plans” have been allowed since 2020 through a pilot program.

Cats are often said to have nine lives. Ruth Wang and Brendan Morrison may not have lived quite that many, but they decided to open a cat cafe together after wandering several other paths. Wang studied physical therapy before becoming a barista and then pursuing a career as an artist. Morrison spent a decade as a martial arts performer and YouTube personality before working in car sales.

Clark Construction has been selected to complete the first stage of construction services for the rebuild of Pimlico Race Course, putting the company in the driver’s seat for the state-backed building project. Following stop-and-start-efforts in recent years to renovate the dilapidated racetrack, the state has now budgeted $400 million in bonds to fund a two-part project: Pimlico will be rebuilt using at least $250 million, and a horse racing training facility will be constructed elsewhere in the state using at least $110 million.