City and state officials gathered in Baltimore Wednesday morning to celebrate the construction start of Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank's new whiskey distillery in South Baltimore.

The Sagamore Spirit distillery complex includes the first new buildings to rise on the hundreds of acres Plank has amassed on the South Baltimore waterfront. Several properties, including a former Sam's Club, are being renovated for reuse.

Plank's plans include a new campus for Under Armour, as well as mixed-use development.

The distillery, planned to be open for tours and tastings starting in 2016, is expected to lure 100,000 visitors annually to the Port Covington peninsula, where public officials have long hoped to see economic development.

http://www.baltimore...1027-story.html

UA employees won't have far to go for happy hour.

Couldn't a new Arena added to this area?

I don't think an arena is a good idea there...limited access and one way in, one way out. The convention center or current location of the arena is the best spot for a new one. I do hope he can be involved in eventually building a new arena, though.

As for the distillery....very cool.

Anyone think this will turn the property as far down as Brooklyn into a hot commodity? Like the Key highway area is now? Its Dirt cheap to buy in Brooklyn now because its a dump.

The appeal of these areas is their proximity to the water and the intrinsic value that has for many people. I definitely think Cherry Hill could be the next hot neighborhood that would be a very good buy right now. Not as sure about Brooklyn or Curtis Bay, as those neighborhoods still have heavily industrialized areas between homes and the water. That barrier may keep those places from taking off.

And agree on a new arena....it needs to be as close as possible to the downtown/Camden Yards area. And being attached to the convention center is the best idea I've heard by far.

Been hearing about Westport for ages now since it has its own light rail station. It's going to take some time to gentrify those areas, where the poor and crime have deep roots. A friend and I accidentally drove through those areas (and Cherry Hill with a boat on a trailer!) when I-95 was closed at Washington Blvd and it isn't pretty. It'll be hard to sell $350,000 condos on the water with blue lights blinking through your window at night.

Still, waterfront property is too temping for developers and builders to pass up. It'll get done eventually.

Been hearing about Westport for ages now since it has its own light rail station. It's going to take some time to gentrify those areas, where the poor and crime have deep roots. A friend and I accidentally drove through those areas (and Cherry Hill with a boat on a trailer!) when I-95 was closed at Washington Blvd and it isn't pretty. It'll be hard to sell $350,000 condos on the water with blue lights blinking through your window at night.

 

Still, waterfront property is too temping for developers and builders to pass up. It'll get done eventually.

The holdup on Westport was the recession and financing/bankruptcy issues the original developers faced, not really the neighborhood itself. Now that that is past, there should be a lot of movement....I read somewhere that homeowners in the area have already had a lot of investors/developers combing the neighborhood near the property Plank owns.

Definitely going to require the "critical mass" for a place like Cherry Hill to gentrify. But there's just too many things about the location (mostly it's proximity to the water, downtown and other development) for it not to happen at some point, IMO. The only thing that will prevent or delay it is another bad recession that shuts off the money flow.

http://www.baltimore...0107-story.html

Plank's looking to build another Harbor East.

No surprise, I guess, but the Port Covington WalMart is one of the 269 stores slated to close.

http://www.baltimore...0115-story.html

No surprise, I guess, but the Port Covington WalMart is one of the 269 stores slated to close. http://www.baltimore...0115-story.html

I used to go to the Sam's Club all the time when I was in Canton. Only went to that Walmart once, and it was definitely a dump.

Welp...

http://www.baltimore...0309-story.html

Wow, that's a lot.

You could get close to a new arena for that $535 million.

This is just for infrastructure like roads and water mains right?  What percentage of stuff like that is typically paid for by state or municipal entities as opposed to the private owners?  I've got no idea.

Yeah, I'm not sure what is typical in cases like this.  But according to the article, Sagamore is asking for $535 million just from the city, plus an additional $900 million from the state and federal governments and private investment.  That seems like a lot, although I also have no idea, so maybe it's typical.

Yeah, I'm not sure what is typical in cases like this.  But according to the article, Sagamore is asking for $535 million just from the city, plus an additional $900 million from the state and federal governments and private investment.  That seems like a lot, although I also have no idea, so maybe it's typical.

There's a long tradition of getting gov't to pay for local infrastructure improvement.  Most folks think it makes sense.  

The problem is that for the last couple decades, it's typically become more than that... it's become a question of the company getting localities to compete against each other to see which one will offer the best deal beyond just infrastructure... which local gov't will come up with the largest taxpayer funded bribe...  except they don't call it a bribe... they call it "incentives".... but it boils down to the same thing...

Whether that's going on in this case, I have no idea...

I'm pretty sure the developers for the Harbor East/Harbor Point projects received TIFs from the city (the same method being proposed here). I don't know the amount for those previous ones, and didn't see it mentioned in the article, but it seems like that might be somewhat of a basis for comparison (though Port Covington appears to be an even bigger project than both of those put together).

Over half a billion is an awful lot of money, especially considering that's just what they are asking from the city, and plan to ask the state for even more. On the other and, this is a huge project and it's not hard to envision the enormous return it could provide for the city. And simply having Under Armour, and Kevin Plank individually, in Baltimore is very important for the city IMO. Baltimore needs them more than they need Baltimore....and just the psychological impact of them leaving is something I don't think anyone wants to think about.

This is how the game is played now....not much different than how sports franchises extort public money for stadiums. Even if they don't say it, the threat of them leaving for greener pastures always looms large.

EDIT: I should have scrolled below the end of the article. Harbor Point got a $107 million TIF for a $1 billion project. So this is actually in line with that.

It sounds big as a raw number, but when you compare this project proposal with something like Harbor East, it's far, far larger and more ambitious--possibly on an exponential level.