Business

Plans to transform downtown Baltimore’s iconic yet faded Harborplace into a mixed-use project faced criticism Thursday from a city panel that asked the developer to step back from a fully formed proposal and analyze alternatives for the high-profile site. MCB Real Estate has proposed demolishing the waterfront shopping anddining pavilions that for decades have symbolized the Inner Harbor attraction and replacing them with four taller, mixed-use buildings, including a conjoined tower with around 900 apartments, one smaller building in a large new park, a two-tier promenade and realigned roadways.

As officials look to grow tourism and special events, members of a resort commission say they want more detail on what is being requested in the fiscal year 2025 budget. During an Ocean City Tourism Commission meeting Monday, Tourism and Business Development Director Tom Perlozzo briefed officials on the upcoming budget process.

Grocery Outlet, a retailer of name-brand consumables and fresh products with more than 450 stores in eight states, opened its first location in the Carroll County marketplace Thursday. Independent owners and operators and Sykesville residents Gregory and Amber Phelps signed a lease with Continental Realty Corporation (CRC) for 22,069 square feet of space within Freedom Village, a nearly 130,000-square-foot neighborhood shopping center at 6300 Georgetown Blvd. in Eldersburg.

Soon, businesses in Baltimore that employ facial recognition software could be required to register with the city and post a sign on the premises notifying patrons. “Facial recognition technology in use,” it would say, under legislation proposed in Baltimore City Council. The signs would warn that entering the establishment amounts to “consenting to your physical appearance being collected, generated or analyzed.”

MCB Real Estate is expanding its C-suite with the addition of a president who will focus on growth just as a $500 million private overhaul of Harborplace launches. Gina Baker Chambers will start in the newly created position at the Baltimore-based development and investment firm on Dec. 1. She has served as senior managing director and portfolio manager at Washington, D.C.-based Artemis Real Estate Partners for nine years and has worked with MCB co-founders P. David Bramble and Peter Pinkard since 2015 to help fund several projects.

A national indoor golf simulator venue will open a Harford County location this week, with three more Maryland locations to come next year. California-based X-Golf will open its Bel Air location the evening of Nov. 17. The indoor golf company, which already has a location in Pasadena, is poised to add three more locations throughout the state early next year, in Annapolis, Eldersburg and Frederick.

Amazon will buy renewable energy from a solar project on Backbone Mountain in Garrett County that is being built at the former site of a reclaimed coal mine. The 120-year-old mining site formerly operated by Arch Coal was contaminated with more than 45 acres of coal refuse. The project is Amazon’s first to be built on a brownfield — land that has been abandoned due to industrial pollution — the company said in a news release.