Business

Besieged by rising office vacancy rates, depressed leasing activity and weak sales, a group of office building owners has commissioned a report showing a pending drop in property tax collections. The owners are requesting county assistance and predicting budget headaches if they don’t get it. Here are the problems as they see it. MoCo’s office vacancy rate has risen from 13.1% to 17.7% since 2019, partly because of changing work patterns since the pandemic.

Ovenbird Bakery plans to open its third and largest location in December, over two years after first announcing the East Baltimore spot. The bakery will debut its Highlandtown shop at 3925 Gough St. during a soft opening this weekend, with regular service to start on Dec. 6. The bakery also has locations in Little Italy and Lexington Market and Ovenbirds’ owners are looking at neighborhoods like Locust Point, Federal Hill and Hampden for future expansion.

The board of directors of McCormick & Company Inc. announced Wednesday an increase in the quarterly dividend from $0.39 to $0.42 per share on its common stocks, payable Jan. 8, 2024, to shareholders of record Dec. 29. This marks the 38th consecutive year that the company has increased its quarterly dividend. The Hunt Valley-based McCormick & Co. has more than $6 billion in annual sales across 170 countries and territories.

As Tesla prepares to start shipping out its new Cybertruck to customers this week, the electric car company has been making the vehicles available to see in person at showrooms across the country, including at the Tesla store at Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda, Maryland. The truck looks like a tank from the future with a massive windshield, huge tires, shatter-resistant glass and a stainless steel exterior.

Sheetz is planning two new stores with gas stations in the Hagerstown area, including one at the site of an old Sears store being demolished. It’s too early to provide specific details about the Sheetz planned at the Longmeadow Shopping Center, according to Sheetz Public Relations Manager Nick Ruffner. Construction is underway at the former Sharrett auto dealer site at Dual Highway and Mount Aetna Road for another new Sheetz, according to Ruffner.

Harbor East and Harbor Point were hailed as the bright spots in an otherwise sagging office and commercial market during a meeting Tuesday of Greater Baltimore’s real estate brokers. Spencer Levy, senior economic adviser at CBRE, offered the crowd at the Sheraton Baltimore North in Towson a dose of hard reality and even some optimism in a market battered by sky-high interest rates and lack of financing.

Good eats in Hamilton-Lauraville are nothing new. The northeastern side of the city is home to beloved dining spots like Maggie’s Farm, Koco’s Pub, Taste This, Zeke’s Coffee and Silver Queen Cafe. More recent additions include Cafe Campli, a restaurant serving dishes from Italy’s Abruzzo region, Diasporan Soul, a Jamaican-American fusion spot and Arcola, a neighborhood coffee shop.