Clyde’s Restaurant Group to take over Baltimore Peninsula’s Rye Street Tavern

A Washington D.C. restaurant group is expanding to Baltimore with plans to take over a waterfront tavern in the Baltimore Peninsula development.

Clyde’s Restaurant Group announced Monday it has signed a long-term lease to take over Rye Street Tavern, which first opened in 2017 as part of the Sagamore Spirit Distillery complex. The restaurant group will make improvements to the 12,000-square-foot, two-story restaurant and will create a large outdoor dining area with a projected early 2024 opening.

The restaurant is located in the 235-acre South Baltimore project formerly known as Port Covington and had struggled to find its footing in the wake of the pandemic. Rye Street closed in the early days of the pandemic but reopened in July 2020 with a focus on its outdoor seating. The restaurant then closed again in December 2020 and said in May 2021 that it would remain closed in order to “reimagine” its role in the development. It reopened for private events a few months later in September of that year.

Now Rye Street Tavern will get another overhaul, with Clyde’s planning to rethink the existing restaurant alongside Washington-based Grizform Design Architects. Renovations will include a redesigned kitchen, oyster bar and an outside waterfront venue, which will have a 75-seat island bar as the centerpiece. The new restaurant will employ 150 people, according to a release.

The restaurant will feature Maryland cuisines along with seasonal and classic cocktails, local beers and international wines. It will only stock one brand of rye whiskey – Sagamore Spirit Rye, Clyde’s executive Jeff Owens said in a statement.

“Clyde’s Restaurant Group is an ideal partner for us, with their emphasis on high quality food and service in a fun and active environment,” Kevin Plank, CEO of Sagamore Ventures and founder of Under Armour, said in a statement. “We expect the new Rye Street Tavern will be tremendously well-received by residents, businesses, and visitors. We anticipate Rye Street Tavern will become the heart of the neighborhood.”

The planned reopening of Rye Street Tavern comes as the Baltimore Peninsula development continues to gain momentum. The project got new master developers, rebranded, signed its first office tenants and started leasing its first apartments all within the last year as the first phase of the 1.1 million-square-foot development wraps up.

For Clyde’s, Rye Street Tavern marks its first Baltimore location. It has other restaurants in Virginia, Washington D.C. and Maryland, including Clyde’s of Chevy Chase, 1789 Restaurant, Old Ebbitt Grill and The Hamilton.

Rye Street was previously run by New York-based NoHo Hospitality Group, which also runs Rec Pier Chop House at the Sagamore Pendry Baltimore in Fells Point, and was designed by Baltimore’s Patrick Sutton.

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CFG Bank finalizes deal to move headquarters to Baltimore Peninsula

The long-anticipated deal to move CFG Bank’s headquarters to Baltimore Peninsula has been finalized.

The bank will move into 97,000 square feet of space at 2455 House St. by the end of the year, officials said Wednesday morning. Details of the CFG lease deal first surfaced in mid-September, even as negotiations remained ongoing for the anchor tenant of the seven-story, red-brick tower. House Street will be the new name for the street formerly known as Banner Street, a spokesperson for the development said.

The 15-year lease is the largest to be signed to date at the 235-acre project formerly known as Port Covington. The redevelopment of the former industrial peninsula off Hanover Street was envisioned nearly a decade ago by Under Armour founder Kevin Plank whose Sagamore Ventures is a major investor along with master developers MAG Partners and MacFarlane Partners.

“It speaks volumes that a company like CFG Bank, a pillar of the Baltimore business community, has selected Baltimore Peninsula for its future home,” Plank said, in a statement.

Bill Wiedel, CEO of CFG Bank, said the move to South Baltimore from the current HQ near Mt. Washington and the city-Baltimore County line would allow the bank to expand in the coming years including a foray into consumer lending. The bank has only two branches, in Fells Point and Timonium, and is currently headquartered in a large building just over the line in Baltimore County near Lake Roland.

CFG’s move to Baltimore Peninsula comes as the bank is also raising its local profile with the sponsorship of Baltimore Arena downtown. The arena is expected to reopen in February after a $200 million overhaul by Oak View Group.

“As our businesses continued to grow, we were in search of a new location that could accommodate our current and future expansion, provide an environment to foster our team’s entrepreneurial spirit, and support the reinvigoration of Baltimore,” Wiedel said. “As we design and build our new headquarters, we are creating a truly unique space where all our employees will thrive and work together, grow, and achieve our own goals and those of our clients.”

Wiedel said in an interview with the Baltimore Business Journal last month the space at Baltimore Peninsula is being designed to entice most of its 240 employees to come into the office at least three days a week. Amenities and incentives will include a large kitchen space, rooftop deck access, 5,000-square-foot employee lounge and golf, soccer and baseball simulators as well as collaborative work stations.

“We are thinking of every detail down to the colors, fragrance and acoustics,” Wiedel said.

In addition to CFG Bank’s new headquarters, the new office space will also hold the headquarters for the Capital Funding Group and the Jack and Nancy Dwyer Workforce Development Center, Inc.

CFG Bank is among the largest commercial lenders and private companies in Greater Baltimore with $2 billion in real estate loans and $2.5 billion in commercial and industrial loans as of June 30, 2022, according to Baltimore Business Journal research. CFG is part of Capital Funding Group, an umbrella corporation owned by local businessman Jack Dwyer.

Scooter Monroe, vice president of office leasing at MAG Partners, and real estate advisor Ed Guiltinan helped to close the CFG lease with brokers Antony Gross and Anne Marie Paintsil of JLL. Kevin Haus and Matt Haas, also with JLL, represented CFG Bank. Design firm NewGround is working with CFG to create its new space.

Another office tenant, Chambers Co., signed a lease at the Baltimore Peninsula last year for 9,000 square feet of space at Rye Street Market.

BBJ reporter Garrett Dvorkin contributed reporting to this article.

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