Business

A Baltimore County kids’ shoe company started by a former Adidas and Mizuno executive has secured deals to get its shoes in several regional running stores. Jbrds, which focuses on making shoes built specifically for kids’ feet, will soon have its shoes in Charm City Run and Pacers stores. The deals are the first retail partnerships for the company that started selling its shoes online in August 2022 and will bring Jbrds to much of the mid-Atlantic.

Wood enthusiasts interested in sourcing timber from local trees will have a chance this weekend, when the Montgomery County parks department hosts its third annual urban wood sale, offering buyers the chance to purchase wood salvaged from area trees. Among the offerings — walnut, cherry, poplar, oak, mulberry, cypress and ash, according to a Montgomery Parks statement — will be celebrity timber: wood salvaged from Maryland’s historic Linden Oak, thought to have been more than 300 years old when it was felled in July.

Tisha Skinner operates the only Rita’s Italian Ice franchise at an airport anywhere, in Terminal C at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport. She also has a Smoothie King franchise in Terminal D14 at BWI. Like a lot of vendors who run businesses in the airport, she’s excited about the multimillion-dollar improvements the state plans to make over the next several years at BWI.

With acts such as Bruce Springsteen, Lionel Richie, Janet Jackson, New Edition and Queen already rocking its venue, CFG Bank Arena seems to be striking the right chord with bands and audiences. Seven months after the unveiling of the $250 million revamped venue, it’s also receiving big, international praise. Billboard magazine announced that among venues with a capacity of less than 15,000, CFG Arena was the tenth highest-grossing venue in the world and number four in North America. In 2009, the venue ranked first in North America.

Sparrows Point Alliance, a nonprofit, grassroots organization of Maryland community groups, business organizations, and labor unions, officially launched Wednesday to support the continued revitalization of Sparrows Point and specifically the completion of the proposed Sparrows Point Container Terminal project (SPCT).

CVS Health, the nation’s largest pharmacy chain with more than 9,000 locations, said on Tuesday that it planned to change the way its pharmacies are paid for the medications they dispense, in an apparent attempt to address widespread criticism from health plans and employers about high drug costs. The new model, which will begin to go into effect next year, involves a complex corner of the opaque world of drug pricing.

AstraZeneca PLC (NYSE: AZN) is doubling down on Montgomery County, adding another large facility to its already substantial footprint in suburban Maryland. The British pharmaceutical giant has inked a lease to take over a full building — 198,000 square feet — at 700 Progress Way in Gaithersburg. The property sits less than three miles north of AstraZeneca’s existing campus, a nine-story headquarters comprising 1.27 million square feet.