Developers' Campaign Cash Favors Scott In Baltimore Mayoral Race
In the race for the Democratic Party's Baltimore mayoral nomination, the city's de facto election, donations from developers and commercial real estate professionals show the industry backing Mayor Brandon Scott rather than chief rival Sheila Dixon.
A review of the candidates' most recent campaign finance filings with the State Board of Elections shows Scott has accepted tens of thousands of dollars from business entities and executives since winning the Democratic primary in June 2020. Dixon has also collected financial support from notable developers and commercial real estate interests. Neither campaign responded to requests for comment on this story.
Several candidates are running in this year's primary, including former prosecutor Thiru Vignarajah and businessman Bob Wallace. However, recent polls show Scott and Dixon remain the most popular candidates, with roughly 80% of respondents telling surveyors they support one of the two.
That makes the primary, slated for May 14, a rematch between the top candidates from four years ago.
In June 2020, then-City Council President Scott narrowly defeated Dixon, a former mayor who resigned in February 2010 as part of a plea agreement stemming from the embezzlement of gift cards.
However, that race had distinctly different dynamics, such as a crowded field with a handful of well-known candidates.
Commercial real state professionals can find something to like in both Scott and Dixon’s platforms.
During his tenure in office, Scott has backed MCB Real Estate’s plans to transform Harborplace around the city’s famed Inner Harbor into a massive mixed-use development, proposed a plan to leverage $3B in investment with $300M in city funds to eliminate 45,000 vacant homes and signed into law a pair of inclusionary housing bills that replace previous laws that critics called inadequate.
“Access to housing is so often the difference between a family’s ability to have security and success or for them to face the most dire impacts that historic disinvestment can have on our communities,” Scott said in a statement after signing the inclusionary housing bills into law.
Dixon, in her most recent mayoral campaign, has also proposed ways to help the city development and CRE industry, particularly the struggling office market in the city’s traditional central business district. She proposed requiring city employees to work from downtown offices, creating more activity downtown and improving communication between private businesses in the area and city agencies.
“I know people are comfortable working from home, but if you go look at downtown and look at what’s happened — small businesses, restaurants, other places — they’re all closed,” Dixon said during a roundtable on business issues last month. “It’s dead around there. I know people are comfortable. And some areas, [like] IT, yeah, I understand you can work from home. But we need people back.”
Since Scott's primary victory nearly four years ago, real estate executives and high-profile developers have donated substantial amounts to his campaign coffers.
Developer Mark Sapperstein and entities associated with his development firm, 28 Walker, rank at the top of that list, according to Scott's campaign finance reports.
28 Walker has developed some of Baltimore's most successful projects, including Canton Crossing and McHenry Row. His firm is also behind the multifamily, condo and townhome development on the former Locke Insulator site at Baltimore Peninsula.
Sapperstein and various limited liability corporations that list the same address as the offices of 28 Walker have donated seven times, totaling $53,250, to the mayor's re-election bid since Aug. 18, 2020.
However, Sapperstein's financial support isn't limited to Scott's campaign. On Jan. 9, 2024, Sapperstein and his wife, Stacy Sapperstein, contributed $6K each to Dixon's campaign. That is the maximum any individual can donate to a candidate in an election cycle under Maryland law. However, each limited liability corporation, even if connected to a single business or person, can legally donate up to $6K per election cycle.
Sapperstein told Bisnow he has regularly donated money during his 30-year career to the campaigns of candidates he thinks will revitalize and improve the city.
Sapperstein said both Dixon and Scott are worth supporting based on their ability to lead the city. He said he doesn’t feel it’s “a big deal” that he contributed to both candidates.
“The reality is one of them is going to win,” Sapperstein said.
Beatty Development Group founder Michael Beatty and his wife, Nathalie Beatty, who serves as Beatty Development Group's creative director, also contributed substantial donations to the Scott reelection bid. The couple has donated four times since Jan 12, 2021, for a total of $22K.
Beatty Development Group's projects rank among some of the biggest in the city, such as the massive mixed-use Harbor Point development. The company is also involved in the ongoing redevelopment of Penn Station and the Perkins, Somerset and Oldtown Transformation.
Himmelrich Associates, Inc. is another developer that has donated substantial amounts of money to Scott's reelection bid. Founder Samuel Himmelrich Jr. and eight limited liability corporations that share the company's address all contributed to the mayor's campaign, according to a Bisnow review of campaign finance filings. Himmelrich and associated entities donated nine times to Scott's campaign since Jan. 11, 2022, amounting to $14,500.
Himmelrich Associates, Inc. has developed the Montgomery Park offices in South Baltimore and the mixed-use Mount Washington Mill. The firm is pursuing transforming the Pepsi Bottling plant near Hampden into Plant 83, a nod to its location under Interstate 83.
Affiliates of developer Caves Valley Partners have made 16 donations totaling $10K to Scott’s campaign since Jan. 25, 2021.
Caves Valley Partners' projects in Baltimore include the Stadium Square mixed-use development and Cross Street Market. The developers have also overhauled The Village of Cross Keys and the Metro West project in the former Social Security Administration offices in downtown's Westside neighborhood.
Not all of Baltimore's notable real estate interests are backing Scott. Dixon's campaign reported donations from Stephanie Paterakis, Charles Paterakis and John J. Paterakis Jr. of H&S Properties. Those three donors contributed $1,500 apiece between late December and early January.
The late John Paterakis and Michael Beatty founded H&S Development Corp., which developed Harbor East and was a frequent contributor to Dixon's campaigns. However, Paterakis’ contributions to former Councilwoman Helen Holton eventually led him to plead guilty to two misdemeanor campaign finance violations in September 2009.
That scandal was also partially tied to Dixon's legal woes. Developer Ronald Lipscomb, who owned a small stake in Harbor East, was involved in a romantic relationship with Dixon. Lipscomb pleaded guilty in June 2009 to campaign violations tied to financing a poll for Holton.
In exchange for prosecutors dropping charges alleging he paid Holton to help obtain tax credits for Harbor East, Lipscomb agreed to cooperate with prosecutors' investigation of Dixon. That January, a grand jury indicted Dixon on perjury and theft charges related to gifts she'd received from Lipscomb.
Since her resignation and subsequent bids to regain the mayor’s office, Dixon has repeatedly apologized for what she described as “mistakes in my personal life.”
“I’ve been told that my prior efforts to apologize for the past have fallen short. I write to you today to eliminate all ambiguity or questions of where I stand and have stood since I left office,” Dixon wrote in an opinion piece in The Baltimore Sun in September. “I let matters of the heart lead me astray once before, and for that, and the pain that it caused to my beloved Baltimore, I am truly sorry.”
Lipscomb, now of SRCM Development LLC, is now backing her competition, having donated $6K to Scott's campaign in January 2023.
