Business

Developers behind an ambitious $500 million-plus plan to overhaul the iconic Harborplace complex know they’ve got a lot of convincing to do. On Monday evening, P. David Bramble and other members of his MCB Real Estate development team took their best crack at winning over about 200 Baltimore neighbors who could eventually be among those to decide the fate of a charter amendment necessary for the project to move forward.

The Local Oyster is closing Saturday, founder Nick Schauman said Monday afternoon. Schauman started setting up his roving oyster bar at festivals and markets in 2013 and opened the first permanent Local Oyster location inside Mount Vernon Marketplace in 2015. The Locust Point location opened in September 2022 as the first standalone location for the restaurant specializing in Maryland seafood and local beers.

Employees at Mom’s Organic Market in Baltimore have ratified their first contract more than a year after unionizing, becoming the first store in the grocery retailer chain to reach a deal. The two sides agreed upon a new three-year contract that includes new paid time off policies, scheduled minimum raises and scheduling protections, according to Will Swanson, the union’s shop steward who served on the negotiating committee.

Repeated promises made by state officials and Orioles executives that a renegotiated Camden Yards lease will pay off for Baltimore City and state taxpayers denies decades of economic research, and few details about how those benefits will be delivered have been formalized with less than two months before the Birds’ lease expires.

The long-awaited plan for re-imagining downtown Baltimore’s iconic, yet faded, Harborplace features four new buildings, two of them apartment towers, surrounded by a reworked Inner Harbor promenade, a large new park and realigned roadways. The developer behind the proposal said Monday he plans to raise $500 million in private funds for the project, but public money would be needed to pay for open spaces and infrastructure.

Flywheel Digital, a Baltimore digital commerce company, is set to be sold to a New York media and marketing company for $835 million. Flywheel Digital, which has more than 200 employees at its Locust Point headquarters, will be sold to Omnicom Group Inc., a Fortune 500 company, pending shareholder approval. Omnicom (NYSE: OMC) said in a release that the deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2024.

Even three years on, the Covid-19 pandemic’s influence continues to be felt on Greater Baltimore businesses. For this year’s List of the fastest-growing private companies in the region, we looked at revenue growth from 2020 to 2022 and as a result, many of the top businesses were those who experienced a strong comeback from the pandemic.

There’s scrubbing the steps. Then there’s digging up the front yard. For Baltimore, remaking Harborplace amounts to the latter. Developer MCB Real Estate’s plan reimagines some of the city’s most prized parcels, adding housing, expanding park space and redesigning a busy intersection. Below take an interactive tour of what’s been proposed and how it would compare to what the Inner Harbor looks like today.