BREW’S DETAILED COVERAGE OF PORT COVINGTON: hereand here.This comes after years of talk – Plank first announced his plans in 2016 – about Port Covington becoming “the new economic engine” for a struggling city. Weller admitted that he hasn’t signed a single tenant for the five buildings that are expected to be completed and open for occupancy over the next 6-10 months. “This is about responding to the market,” she said. MaryAnne Gilmartin, the “woman-owned” half of the new team brought from New York and San Francisco, told the Baltimore Business Journalthat her focus “is to lease the commercial space, fill the buildings with residents. To her left is now-Mayor (then City Council President) Brandon Scott. BELOW: Marc Weller shares a shovel with then-Mayor Jack Young at the 2019 groundbreaking of Phase 1.
Kevin Plank stands in front of his vision of Port Covington in 2016.
Next week, when the local real estate industry gathers in Las Vegas for the Maryland Party, Weller Development will be notably absent as a sponsor. Weller’s firing was the second shoe to drop. We believe in it, we believe in this community and all that it has to offer.”Īnadu’s sudden departure, announced in February, took Wall Street by surprise. The first canary-in-the-coal-mine sign of trouble was Margaret Anadu’s resignation.Īs managing director of Goldman’s Urban Investment Group, Anadu had pumped $250 million into the project, a far larger investment than Plank’s own.Īt the 2019 groundbreaking of Phase 1, she spoke passionately about her firm’s commitment, saying, “We don’t care what people say about this city. In fact, the switch is an attempt to shore up an unwieldy project whose uncertain future has set off alarm bells at Goldman Sachs, its biggest private investor. In a carefully crafted press rollout, Plank’s message was that Weller’s replacement by a team of “leading woman-owned and Black-owned development firms” would jumpstart a new era. That’s the $650 million question – the projected cost of Phase 1 – that looms after Weller was dismissed last week as the master developer of Port Covington. Now Marc Weller has gone back to Montgomery County, leaving behind 586,000 square feet of soon-to-be-completed residential units, 440,000 square feet of office space and 116,000 square feet for retail stores, all without tenants.Ĭan people be lured to live and work and shop on this isolated appendage of South Baltimore? Then he emerged as head of an untested development company charged with erecting there a mini-city of soaring glass towers, shopping and entertainment emporiums, and 10,000 projected apartments for millennials and creatives – a waterfront oasis that owner Plank once referred to as “Dubai on the Patapsco.” He first came to public attention in 2014 as the mystery buyer of industrial land at Port Covington for Under Armour founder Kevin Plank.
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