In Baltimore, Under Armour’s owner invests in a $5.5 billion bet on his city (35,000 jobs)

Curbed ^ | April 11, 2017 | Patrick Sisson

[2ndDivisionVet]

The opening of any new hotel carries a certain amount of optimism and symbolism. That went double for the March debut of Sagamore Pendry, the latest high-end hotel to open in Baltimore.

It wasn’t just the luxurious look of the 128-room hotel—complete with a steakhouse, whiskey bar, outdoor pool, and nods to horse racing, a reference to Maryland’s history of raising thoroughbreds—that made news. The building, once featured on the television show Homicide, part of the string of true-crime dramas that have given many an unsavory impression of the city, has a certain symbolic resonance, and its renovation is a signal things are changing.

It’s a sentiment the company, Sagamore Development, has channeled for Port Covington, a $5.5 billion waterfront development plan and one of the nation’s largest real estate projects. Located on the Patapsco River, this new city-within-a-city is viewed by many backers and Baltimoreans as a catalyst to raise the city’s profile and build a 21st-century economy.

Bankrolled by Kevin Plank—the hometown entrepreneurial success story and billionaire founder of Under Armour, the athletic-apparel giant and owner of Sagamore—and public funding, this site isn’t just a massive investment in infrastructure, industry, and waterfront property, though it’s definitely all those things. It includes 2.5 miles of restored waterfront, 40-plus acres of new parks, 14.1 million square feet of mixed-use development on 235 acres spread across 45 city blocks, a new 3.9-million-square-foot Under Armour global headquarters, a light-rail station, and a score of next-generation manufacturing centers and startup spaces....

[safeasthebanks]

“That’s not a black area. It sounds like Fells Point.”

Not really. I believe this is the area kinda south of Federal Hill/Fort Avenue. Still slightly west of Fort McHenry.

Right across the river from Cherry Hill and Harbor Hospital - easily accessible by the Hanover Street bridge (yikes!).

[COBOL2Java]

Maybe they can build on the site of the old CVS Store

[VietVet876]

Fells Point is correct. Not a totally black area but within shuffling distance to drug-ridden gang-controlled ghettos. Fells Point had a nice little Farmer’s Market every Saturday morning on the square at the foot of Broadway just northwest from Plank’s new hotel. Two people killed this market: the little nickle-bag smack dealer Freddie Gray and Kevin Plank. Freddie because the negroid intifada after his death last spring brought the looters into the Green Zone of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor and surrounding yuppified neighborhoods and drove all the local farmer’s market shoppers to the suburbs and killed the tourist trade perhaps for years. So that was Freddie’s contribution. Now Kevin Plank buys (or is given) the City-owned pier and proceeds to build his hotel. The construction crew consisted of mostly Mexicans of questionable immigrant status who would arrive on the job before dawn on Saturday mornings and take all the parking spots reserved for farmer’s market vendors and customers. Of course all the Mexicans drove huge pickup trucks that would take up two or more spaces. The vendors and some residents complained to the City and Plank rented garage parking space nearby but the lazy beaners ignored the garages. Now since Plank’s hotel was almost complete, the square where the farmer’s market was held needed a multi-million dollar City-funded upgrade. New curbing, paving, a water fountain or two on an area around an acre, maybe acre and a half. So good luck to Plank. I have a feeling that all this money he is investing is probably not really his money and I would look carefully of divesting in the UA stock gradually if it is in your portfolio.