This Week's Baltimore Deal Sheet
LuminUltra, a biological diagnostics testing company, celebrated the opening of its U.S. headquarters in Anne Arundel County on Tuesday.
The new headquarters consists of 14K SF in the BWI Tech Park and allowed LuminUltra to bring its technology development and distribution divisions together in one spot. St. John Properties owns the 156-acre business park that includes 1M SF of Class-A office, flex/R&D and retail space.
“Opening this new facility at Pinnacle Drive unites two of our most critical departments and will foster even more innovation, and collaboration,” LuminUltra CEO Pat Whalen said in a statement.
Lacey Johansson of St. John Properties represented the landlord. Mark Deering and Drew White of MacKenzie Commercial Real Estate Services represented the tenant.
SALES
A roughly 25K SF industrial building in Baltimore’s Carroll Camden Industrial Area, located blocks from the Horseshoe Casino and M&T Bank Stadium, sold for $2.6M this week, according to broker Marcus & Millichap. The broker didn't name the buyer in a news release announcing the sale, but it described the new owners as a microbrewery.
Checkerspot Brewing Co.’s owners said they purchased the building, located at 1421 Ridgely St., according to SouthBmore.com. The brewery currently leases 12K SF at 1399 South Sharp St. It intends to expand its operations to about 18K SF at the new building and will lease the remaining space to an existing tenant.
FINANCING
Baltimore pumped $3M into the city-owned Hilton Inner Harbor Hotel in August, which raises the number of public dollars spent to keep the troubled property’s doors open since the coronavirus pandemic to $16M, according to The Baltimore Sun. The city built the 757-room hotel roughly 15 years ago to bolster the outdated Baltimore Convention Center. But the hotel has struggled to turn a profit due mainly to being hampered by $300M in debt from city bond issues.
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Maryland-based MacKenzie Capital projected “robust financing activity” for local commercial real estate to continue through the end of the year, according to a report issued Wednesday. However, MacKenzie Capital expects investment dollars to gravitate toward adaptive reuse and value-add assets in specific markets.
“We are following our clients to the southeast section of the United States, as well as Maryland’s Eastern Shore, with value-add and adaptive reuse projects remaining front and center,” MacKenzie Capital President John Black said in a statement.
LEASES
Buffalo Bill’s II, a butcher, and Betty Lee’s Candy Dish, a candy store, signed leases to operate in the new Lexington Market building, which is currently under construction. The market’s development team has so far named 38 merchants they expect to operate in the new $40M building when it opens in the Westside section of downtown Baltimore.
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Univest Bank is seeking permission from regulators in its home state of Pennsylvania to open two Baltimore-area locations, according to the Baltimore Business Journal. Documents filed with those regulators show an application to operate at 10801 Tony Drive in Lutherville-Timonium has been approved. An application for a second location at 175 West Ostend St. in the city is still pending.
PERSONNEL
St. John Properties has hired Fran Campos as the administrative assistant for the firm’s in-house retail leasing team. Campos will serve a variety of roles with a focus on assisting with marketing, leasing and tenant renewals for the Baltimore-based commercial real estate development and management firm.
