News

The Maryland Department of Environment (MDE) has hired Environment and Energy Economics (E3) to study least-cost approaches to reducing carbon emissions from buildings. The firm has been advising Maryland on its greenhouse gas reduction strategies since 2018 and has consulted for the California Air Resources Board, New York State, Oregon,…

Photo credit: Maximilian Franz Another long-dormant Baltimore-area manufacturing plant — once brimming with blue collar workers who toiled each day to make a hard-earned living for their families — is scheduled to be transformed into a vibrant multi-tenanted business community to meet the emerging real estate demands of area companies.  …

While expressing optimism about the future of Baltimore City, a panel of real estate experts explained that workers need to return to their offices, consumers still value brick-and-mortar locations and Harborplace remains a critical piece to any long-term revival downtown. The panel, part of the Baltimore Business Journal’s Best in Real Estate…

Quick-service restaurants (QSR), retailers that offer unique experiences and local attractions that cater to people who aren’t traveling yet are all positioned for success. Those were among the observations presented at a recent webinar sponsored by Placer.ai that examined the state of retail, approximately one year after the start of COVID-19.  …

On Monday the Maryland General Assembly finished a session shaped by urgent efforts to accelerate the COVID-19 recovery, initiate social justice reforms, restore the Chesapeake Bay and mitigate the effects of climate change.  The NAIOP Maryland legislative committee carried 268 bills on its bill list – more than…

Pandemic protocols changed more than the physical operations of the General Assembly during its 2021 session. It profoundly changed the nature of debate and review around individual bills and critical issues. Maryland is fertile ground for adventurous policy ideas and has always attracted attention from national non-profits seeking to implement…

The self-storage sector has emerged as one of the strongest and most resilient real estate categories, due partly to life-cycle events among large demographic groups, an especially strong housing market and increased self-storage use by retailers and employers.   Klein Enterprises, in a partnership with Morningstar Storage, operates this self-storage facility in Severn. Life-cycle events, including divorce and…

After witnessing a year of Americans isolating, distancing and generally feeling uneasy about sharing indoor spaces, some developers believe biophilic design could help revive workplaces and public spaces in the post pandemic world.   COPT was in the midst of designing its Wayline building on Columbia Gateway Drive when the pandemic began. Although Wayline was already envisioned as an office…

The new normal in the retail real estate environment is complex. It includes the Darwinian nature of shopping malls, the casualization of America and the move to omni-channel marketing among retailers – three trends that were accelerated during, rather than caused by, the COVID-19 pandemic. Consumers facing shelter-in-place and work-from-home orders had no choice than to turn to…

Landlords need to continually gather input from and work closely with tenants, as well as utilize the latest technology as they implement protocols to reopen the workplace. Most importantly, as guidance from real estate and health organizations changes and new cleaning processes are introduced, building owners need to remain as transparent as possible. That…