Brokerage

As if it hasn't had enough troubles already, the Brokerage at the Inner Harbor office and retail complex is losing some of its key office tenants.Four programs from the state's Department of Licensing and Regulation, including the Office of the Bank Commissioner and the Savings and Loan Division, will move from the eighth floor of the Brokerage to the department headquarters at 501 St. Paul Place within 90 days, according to William A. Fogle Jr., secretary of...

The bankrupt Brokerage is heading for the holiday-season auction block -- and some tenants of the food and entertainment complex say that can only mean good tidings.W.C. Pinkard & Co., operating manager of the downtown complex, said yesterday that the Brokerage will be auctioned Dec. 18. The sale was scheduled after bankruptcy reorganization efforts failed and San Francisco-based Bank of America foreclosed in November."Everyone's paying so much rent but not making any money hardly because there is no traffic,"said Hammed Hossainkhail, owner of the Baltimore Grog & Tankard.

Baltimore officials are proposing to buy The Brokerage, a long-troubled office and retail complex, for $5 million and to move the Cloisters Children's Museum there from its city-owned site in Baltimore County.The Board of Estimates today will consider the city's purchase of The Brokerage -- the perennially ailing development on Market Place near the Inner Harbor -- with money from the sale of bonds previously approved by voters for parking facilities. Integral to redevelopment of the 3-acre complex is the creation of a new Baltimore Children's Museum on the site, according to documents submitted to the board by the Baltimore Development Corp.

Joining a trend to put some meat on what has been a bare-bones service, T. Rowe Price Investment Services Inc. said yesterday that it is starting a dividend reinvestment program for its discount brokerage customers.The free service by the Baltimore-based mutual funds company gives customers the option of having their stock dividends or capital gains distributions from closed-end funds automatically reinvested in additional shares. Before this, the dividends were either mailed to the shareholders or transferred to a Price money market fund, according to Price spokesman Steven E. Norwitz.

An Anne Arundel County foundation that arranges for foster families and other support services for troubled youths announced yesterday that it will move to the city-owned Brokerage complex in Baltimore.The Martin Pollak Project signed a 10-year lease for 20,000 square feet of space and is expected to move 80 full- and part-time employees to the Brokerage, said Brian E. Messaris, an attorney representing the group.The lease is subject to approval by the city Board of Estimates and calls for a rent of $6.60 annually per square foot of space, rising to $10 a foot by 2005.

A possible buyer has emerged for The Brokerage at the Inner Harbor, the troubled retail and office complex that a Bank of America subsidiary purchased at a foreclosure sale in January.M. P. Investments Inc., a Maryland corporation, signed a contract Sept. 4 to purchase the 278,000-square-foot complex at 34 Market Place, according to Charles C. G. Evans of Evans Land Company, the asset manager for the Bank of America subsidiary.Mr. Evans said M. P. Investments now has at least four months to decide whether to move ahead with the acquisition of The Brokerage, which is in and around the block bounded by Market Place and Baltimore, Frederick and Water streets.

The prospective buyers of The Brokerage at the Inner Harbor, a large office and retail complex at 34 Market Place, have requested and received a three-month extension of time to complete their acquisition.MP Investments Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Boulton Hourigan Group Inc. of New York, entered into an agreement to purchase The Brokerage in September and had until sometime in January to decide whether to go through with the transaction.B. A. Properties I Inc., a subsidiary of the Bank of America, is the seller of the 278,000-square-foot property, which includes a two-level mall of shops and nightclubs; a 276-car garage; two floors of office space; a two-story building in the middle of Market Place; and an office annex on Frederick Street.

John Edward Schmeiser, former owner of a Baltimore printing brokerage firm, died Friday of Alzheimer's disease at Fairhaven retirement community in Sykesville. The former Roland Park resident was 91. Born in Baltimore and raised on Gittings Avenue, Mr. Schmeiser was a 1930 graduate of Polytechnic Institute. After working a year to earn tuition money, he enrolled at the Johns Hopkins University and earned a bachelor's degree in engineering in 1935. He was hired that year as production supervisor at Hamilton Watch Co. in Lancaster, Pa. Having been a part of the ROTC program at Hopkins, Mr. Schmeiser was called to active duty in 1941.

The Bank of America took an important step toward gaining control of the troubled Brokerage at the Inner Harbor complex yesterday when one of its subsidiaries submitted the winning bid of $8 million for it at auction.The offer from B.A. Properties, the subsidiary, was the only bid submitted at the auction, which was a foreclosure sale on behalf of San Francisco-based Bank of America.The auction, by Alex Cooper Auctioneers, drew several dozen observers, including a number of merchants with shops on the premises.

The financial markets have had their good days and bad days this year, and it doesn't take much to trigger either of them.No investor smiles too broadly when the New York Stock Exchange leaps 70 points in one day after the Germans slice XTC their interest rates just a smidge. That's because investors have also experienced down days based on vague worries tied to economic data that's either contradictory or incomplete.The hair trigger is even more pronounced when it comes to individual stocks, since even a murmur of bad corporate news can send a specific equity tumbling.