Residents and businesses are moving to the Baltimore Peninsula. Here’s a first look.

Penelope Blackwell

Published on: April 27, 2023 2:13 PM EDT|Updated on: April 28, 2023 9:58 AM EDT

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Commercial, retail and residential spaces have opened at Baltimore Peninsula, the ambitious, 235-acre mixed-use development on the site of an old industrial port in South Baltimore’s Port Covington neighborhood.

The first few office tenants and residents have moved into three newly constructed buildings at the historically underutilized site, which neighbors several predominantly Black communities to its south.

MaryAnne Gilmartin, founder and CEO of MAG Partners, the lead developer, is not stopping there.

“We need Baltimore to be on everybody’s radar,” she said.

More than 800 townhomes, a large entertainment venue and plans to reconfigure major nearby roads and highways are also in the works for the multi-block project, spanning some 200 acres. Existing tenants there include City Garage, Sagamore Spirit Distillery and Rye Street Tavern.

Hotly contested due to its record-breaking tax increment financing package — which allows developers to use property taxes generated at the site to pay back bonds issued early on for public infrastructure needs — the $5.5 billion waterfront venture promises more than 14 million square feet of new construction upon its completion. City residents, housing activists and economic watchdog groups also have opposed the use of such a large incentive — City Council approved $660 million in tax increment financing funds in 2016 — given Baltimore’s other pressing and existing needs.

Baltimore could be on the hook to pay back the bond costs if developers fail to lease up the site, which has only landed two new office tenants so far. Between the first two residential buildings, 11 units have been leased.

The H. Chambers Company, a planning and design firm specializing in private clubs and hospitality, is the first tenant to occupy an office within the Rye Street Market business complex located at 2455 House St. The company signed on for about 9,000 square feet of space.

The building can accommodate smaller businesses with spaces around 25,000 square feet, but there are larger floor plans as well. The rooms are divided by glass walls and doors, and “the sun, the light and air is abundant in the all corners of the floor plate,” Gilmartin said.

Robert Hickman, board chair of the design firm, said the company looked all over the region for their sixth office location.

But it was the Baltimore Peninsula that offered a place that was “really special,” he said, including access to an outdoor balcony.

“We needed something that really brings the outdoors in. And we deal in the world of private clubs … it’s all about inside outside,” Hickman said.

CFG Bank has also signed on to lease about 100,000 square feet in Baltimore Peninsula. They plan to move in by the end of 2023.

By 2024, Gilmartin expects enough activity to get nearly 75% of the commercial space leased, she said.

Just across the courtyard are two mixed-use apartments buildings, Rye House and 250 Mission, where maritime-inspired units — with natural wood, and glass and steel finishings — are available. Other amenities include ample green spaces, co-working spaces and some Juliet balconies.

Ryan Watts, the general manager at real estate developer Bozzuto, said the leasing since early April amounts to 15% of the units at Rye House and 10% of the units at 250 Mission.

Of the 416 units at Rye House, 54 will be dedicated to households earning 80% of the area median income, or AMI, while another 35 will be dedicated to those earning 50% of the AMI.

Last year, New York-based MAG Partners and the San Francisco-based MacFarlane Partners took over the large-scale development, first pitched in 2016 by Under Armour founder Kevin Plank and his Sagamore Ventures development firm. Plank and his associates began buying up the land for the site about a decade ago. Since then, sales at the sportswear company have dropped, and the company has scaled back plans for its new Baltimore Peninsula offices.

In November, developers at MAG and the San Francisco-based MacFarlane Partners rebranded the development, changing the name to the Baltimore Peninsula from Port Covington. They said they hoped to turn a page on some of the project’s contentious history.

Sagamore Ventures still maintains a “major equity stake” in the project, and a new corporate headquarters for Under Armour is slated to open in the fourth quarter of 2024.

Gilmartin said the master plan allows for flexibility, and she envisions building a large entertainment or sports venue, as well as an accompanying hotel and conference center.

She also thinks the project’s scale and easy access to a major highway will make it attractive to the film industry.

“And so we are looking at ways the public sector could develop programs that will attract to that industry, because they’re really good jobs; they train the people both on the other side of the camera and behind the camera,” she said. “And they need the kind of space that our master plan is conducive for.”

Baltimore Banner reporter Hallie Miller contributed to this story.

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Port Covington has a new name: Baltimore Peninsula

Starting Tuesday, Port Covington, the 235-acre waterfront development in South Baltimore, will go by a new name: Baltimore Peninsula.

The change, made public this week, is an attempt by new developers at the New York-based MAG Partners and the San Francisco-based MacFarlane Partners to turn a page on a contentious project that has faced delays, turnover and public criticism, particularly for its heavy reliance on subsidies at the expense of Baltimore’s other needs. Supporters of the effort argue that the finished product will add jobs, stimulate economic growth, and attract visitors and more residents to Baltimore.

MAG Partners CEO and founder MaryAnne Gilmartin and her team also have revised the project’s master plan and expect the final layout of the project to look different from what developers pitched in 2016. For example, they want to stretch the original Founders Park into a linear, diagonal “green artery” that connects the center of the new neighborhood and waterfront with the rest of the city. They also want to better connect to the rest of South Baltimore and Interstate 95 and have proposed adding a “connection” above the CSX tracks at Hanover and McComas Streets.

Gilmartin, in a Monday interview, said the change in name reflects a shift from “a place on a map” to a living, breathing community. She described Baltimore Peninsula’s vision as inclusive, mission-oriented and dynamic.

“All our actions need to reflect that vision,” she said.

Victor MacFarlane, chairman and CEO of MacFarlane Partners, added: “We’re here because we believe in Baltimore’s growth.”

Gilmartin and MacFarlane highlighted their commitment to minority and women business participation in the development as well as affordable housing; the first two residential buildings — to be called Rye House and 250 Mission, with more than 400 units between them — are expected to open this March and will have 20% of the units below market rate, they said. On Monday, they also announced a partnership with Sweeten, a software company that publicly tracks their minority- and women-owned business participation goals.

Attached to one of the largest public subsidies in the country, the $5.5 billion, multi-phase waterfront development in South Baltimore spans more than 200 acres and will feature three direct access points to I-95. Under Armour founder and Executive Chairman Kevin Plank and those affiliated with his Sagamore Ventures development firm spent more than $100 million since they began buying up Port Covington land about a decade ago.

A current goal is to build the once-dominant apparel company a new corporate headquarters surrounded by a “mini-city” akin to the existing Harbor East and Harbor Point sites.

The Baltimore City Council approved the city’s largest tax increment financing deal — $660 million — in 2016 to help fund the project. The project has also qualified for federal Enterprise Zone tax breaks.

Since then, Under Armour’s corporate image has soured amid company scandals, high-profile departures and declining sales, forcing the company to tone down its plans for the new offices. Meanwhile, several iterations of plans for what Port Covington could become — including a hub for technology companies called Cyber Town USA — have not come to pass.

Gilmartin, though, told The Baltimore Banner in an interview earlier this month that the project will be successful, so long as it rebrands and commits to sharing a more positive story.

“There is no doubt in my mind that the City will continue to benefit from the momentum and energy that has resulted from the creation of this new waterfront neighborhood,” Plank said in a Tuesday statement. “The impact is undeniable.”

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Port Covington gets new name, rebranding amid leasing push

Farewell Port Covington. Meet “Baltimore Peninsula”.

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Port Covington renamed Baltimore Peninsula, ushering in new brand and new chapter

Port Covington, the once industrial South Baltimore waterfront that is being redeveloped, is getting a new name to go with its future as a place to live, work, shop and gather.

Starting Tuesday, the massive project south of Interstate 95 will be called Baltimore Peninsula.

The name change, announced Tuesday morning by developers, is the most visible part of a rebranding by a newly installed development team and aims to focus on the area’s future instead of its past.

“We find ourselves at a moment in time, a moment in time where we can think big and carry on the momentum and be all in,” said MaryAnne Gilmartin, founder and CEO of New York-based MAG Partners, which along with San Francisco-based MacFarlane Partners, took over in May as lead developer and investors with owners Sagamore Ventures and Goldman Sachs.

“It’s not a project. It’s a place,” Gilmartin said. “It’s a neighborhood. It’s a home. It’s a headquarters. So it’s time to call the project what we want it to be forever.”

Developers wanted to re-direct thinking about the project with a “powerful” brand that would be clear, authentic, easily recognizable and that “conveys the character and personality of what it represents,” Gilmartin said.

She added that the site is more of a peninsula than a port and that developers believe in Baltimore as a brand, especially in marketing outside the city.

“That’s what we’re pitching,” she said. “We think Baltimore is amazing.

Baltimore Peninsula was chosen from about 50 names, including the current name, over about six months, with the help of consultants and project owners including Under Armour founder Kevin Plank.

Developers, said they hope all of the Port Covington neighborhood, of which they own about 80% of the real estate, will embrace the new name. Other developers are operating separately in Port Covington, some building homes while Under Armour is building a global headquarters on 50 acres owned by the company.

The rebranding comes at a time when the project’s first five buildings are nearing completion, including two office buildings and three residential buildings, with the the first office tenants and apartment residents to start moving in early next year. The 1.1 million square feet of offices, apartments, a hotel, retail and parks is the $500 million first phase of a project eventually planned to hold 14 million square feet on 235 acres.

“Baltimore is an incredibly special place to me — it is home — and it is rewarding to see the culmination of all the great work that has been done to-date,” said Plank, principal and CEO of Sagamore Ventures, in Tuesday’s announcement.

An official grand opening for Baltimore Peninsula is being planned for next September.

Gilmartin said developers are working on finalizing leases with two tenants for the office building on the newly named House Street by the first quarter of next year, which would fully occupy the building. One of those tenants is expected to be CFG Bank. A second office building will house Rye Street Market, and H. Chambers Co., an architecture and interior design firm, will move into 9,000 square feet in that building in March.

“The philosophy for the commercial space is not to cannibalize the Inner Harbor and to move tenants around Baltimore but to go wider on a national strategy,” Gilmartin said.

The first phase also includes 250 Mission, a 162-unit apartment building, and Rye House, a 254-unit apartment building, a 121-unit residential building with an extended-stay hotel, a parking garage and a park. Leasing for the apartments will start in the first quarter and the first residents are expected to move in by March.

Sagamore’s Port Covington project has sprouted alongside its earlier developments, Rye Street Tavern and Sagamore Spirit Distillery. The Baltimore Sun leases its office in the Port Covington development.

Developers hope to announce the start of another office building next year, with a company headquarters type of tenant in place, and another apartment building, Gilmartin said.

“Obviously with the headwinds in the economy, it remains to be seen if we can do that,” she said, though “the residential market is quite robust in Baltimore.”

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Port Covington Developer Names Office Tenant, Says Rebrand Ahead

The massive Port Covington development in Baltimore has inked its first lease, and developer MAG Partners plans to unveil a rebrand and updated master plan later this year, CEO MaryAnne Gilmartin said Thursday morning.

The H. Chambers Co., a 123-year-old interior design business currently headquartered in the Montgomery Park development in southwest Baltimore, signed a 9K SF lease at the Port Covington building dubbed E-7, Gilmartin said. 

“[It’s] an amazing company that fell in love with the ingenuity, the possibilities, and the actual quality of the buildings we’re in. So, I just want you to know that the leasing has begun, and they are our first signed lease,” Gilmartin said. 

Gilmartin announced the deal during Bisnow’s Baltimore State of the Market event on Thursday at 2455 Banner St. in Port Covington. Speaking to reporters after her remarks, Gilmartin said she expects to announce more significant leases by the fourth quarter of this year.  

Last month, news outlets published articles questioning the pace of leasing at the development and probed whether the lack of deals was a sign the project was struggling. 

The Baltimore Banner, citing anonymous sources, reported Wednesday that CFG Bank told its employees the financial institution planned to relocate its offices from Baltimore County to Port Covington. 

Gilmartin said she could not confirm or deny CFG Bank as a future tenant. No deal is done until the ink is dry on a lease, she said.   

Gilmartin also said her firm, which took over as the project’s master developer in May, plans to unveil a new master plan and a rebranding for the development later this year. 

“We’re doing a complete rebrand. A year from now we won’t be calling it Port Covington. We’re going to unveil a new name for the project at the end of this year,” she said. “We just need traction, right? Because the buildings are there.”   

There are five buildings under construction on the site as part of the $550M first phase of construction. Initial plans from Weller Development, the original master developer, called for 14M SF of retail, office and residential space off Interstate 95 on 235 acres covering the city’s southern peninsula. 

Under Armour, whose founder, Kevin Plank, initially financed the Port Covington redevelopment, is constructing the athletic brand’s new global headquarters next to Port Covington.  

Developer Mark Sapperstein also closed this week on the Locke Insulators building on the peninsula, Gilmartin said. Sapperstein’s firm, 28 Walker Development, has developed some of Baltimore’s most successful retail projects, such as The Shops at Canton Crossing and McHenry Row. 

However, another major property on the peninsula is heading toward vacancy. The Baltimore Sun isn’t renewing its lease at 300 East Cromwell St. and is in the process of moving operations out of the building, according to Gilmartin. 

The roughly 500K SF industrial building served for decades as the home of the newspaper’s printing operations before The Sun outsourced printing of the paper earlier this year. Since 2018, the property has also served as the newspaper’s main office after its former owner sold The Sun’s Calvert Street offices downtown.  

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