This Week's Baltimore Deal Sheet
A group led by Baltimore-based commercial real estate and investment company Byrnes & Associates Inc. plans to convert the 10-story building at 207 East Redwood St. from a hotel into apartments.
Byrnes & Associates said its plans include investing $18.5M to transform the property from the Hotel RL Baltimore Inner Harbor into 130 studio, junior one-bedroom and one-bedroom units. The decision to transition the property from a hospitality asset to multifamily comes roughly eight years after RL Baltimore LLC converted the building from offices to a hotel.
The project increases Byrnes & Associates investments on East Redwood Street over the last three years to more than $25M. The firm bought the adjacent 225 East Redwood St. and 233 East Redwood St. in November 2020. The developer then invested $5M to reposition those properties as the Vickers Exchange and Redwood Exchange.
“A renaissance has taken place along East Redwood St. over the past few years as business owners, office workers and consumers alike have rediscovered the magic of this section of Downtown Baltimore which was known as the ‘Wall Street of the South’ in the early 1900s," Byrnes & Associates President Brad Byrnes said in a statement. "Our planned conversion to apartment units represents the next natural evolution of our long-term reinvigoration strategy."
The development team behind repositioning 207 East Redwood St. includes Brad and Kemp Byrnes of Byrnes & Associates, investors Jay Litke and Moe Krohn of Kove Group, who will also serve as general contractors, and investor/asset manager Brendan Ferrara of Carm Capital.
SALES
Commercial real estate firm Harbor Stone Advisors, which specializes in multifamily investment sales, said it brokered the sale of Forrest Street Apartments in Baltimore for $8.8M to a private New York-based group 36 days after the property went on the market. Harbor Stone Advisors President Justin Verner, Director Brooks Healy and Senior Advisor Tom Wohlgemuth served as advisers to the seller, a partnership of Continental Realty and A&R Development.
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A joint venture including MCB Real Estate, Artemis Real Estate Partners and Ace Logistics Services principals purchased the nearly 960K SF Tower Logistics Center in Aberdeen. The warehouse, at 1225 South Philadelphia Road, is slated to be rebranded as the Ace Logistics Center, RE Business Online Reports. Merritt Properties and BentallGreenOak, which developed the asset roughly two years ago, sold the property. JLL's Benjamin Meisels and Peter Hajimihalis represented the buyer, and they represented Ace Logistics in its leasing deal at the property. Bo Cashman and Jonathan Beard of CBRE represented the sellers.
LEASES
Business law firm Liff, Walsh & Simmons and co-tenant Eagle Title, a residential and commercial title insurance firm, leased 14,647 SF at Annapolis Corporate Park. As a result of the new deal, the total space leased by the companies exceeds 23K SF. The expansion at 181 Harry S. Truman Parkway comes as the companies expect their combined workforce to increase from 70 employees to nearly 100 workers in the next year. St. John Properties’ Stephanie Caronna represented the landlord, and John Rosso Jr. of Rosso Commercial Real Estate Services represented the tenants in the deal.
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The woman-owned specialty contracting firm Steel Products Inc. signed a lease with St. John Properties Inc. for 15K SF of flex/R&D space at 4724 Arcadia Drive in the Arcadia Business Park. The move comes on the heels of the company relocating its corporate offices from Rockville to Frederick earlier this year. Danny Foit, a leasing representative for St. John Properties, represented the landlord in this transaction.
St. John Properties' Lakeshore Plaza in Pasadena has inked deals with four new tenants at the Safeway-anchored shopping center. Fast-casual eatery Chipotle Mexican Grill, the Anne Arundel County Public Library and Pho Dena all signed leases, along with Dickey's Barbecue, which plans to open its first Baltimore-area location at the plaza. The new tenants leased more than 11K SF combined and raised the 162K SF plaza's leased rate to 96%. St. John Properties' Bill Holzman and Eric Llewellyn represented the landlord in all four deals.
DEVELOPMENT
The Baltimore County Council on Monday unanimously voted to revoke the application for the Lafarge Quarry planned unit development in the eastern part of the county after months of controversy over a proposal to construct 2.8M SF of warehouse space, The Avenue News reports. The developers behind the project are Chesapeake Real Estate Group and Holcim-MAR, according to the Baltimore Sun.
