Cordish

Phillips Seafood will open a location at Maryland Live, the Cordish Cos.' $500 million casino and entertainment complex under construction at Arundel Mills. Cordish chairman David Cordish made the announcement at a Tuesday afternoon ribbon-cutting at Phillips new restaurant at the the Power Plant, a Cordish-operated retail, restaurant and office complex in Baltimore's Inner Harbor. The addition of Phillips to Maryland Live marks a quick blossoming in the relationship between Cordish and Phillips.

Maryland Art Place chairwoman and fundraiser Suzi Cordish doesn't like to sit still for very long. Along with her husband, developer David Cordish, she travels to exotic settings around the world, wherever work and interests take the couple. They frequent world-class art fairs, international tennis tournaments and high-powered global conferences. But when it comes to divulging her favorite getaway, Cordish points to an American region that is long revered for its inspiring historical significance and well-preserved natural beauty: the Hudson Valley and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Love him or hate him, David S. Cordish, 71, is a man who gets things done. As the head of the Cordish Companies, he turned a languid patch of downtown into the open-air dining and night life destination Power Plant Live! and then brought the idea to other cities such as Louisville (4th Street Live!), Houston (Live! at Bayou Place) and Kansas City (Power & Light District). This month, he put the finishing touches on a $10 million upgrade to Power Plant Live!, and right now, he's building Maryland Live!

Phillips Seafood and the Cordish Cos. announced today that Phillips will remain in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, moving into the former ESPN Zone space at the Power Plant. The Power Plant location is scheduled to open in the Fall of 2011. You can follow the story here . UPDATE:  The new Phillips will include a crab deck on the floating barge that ESPN Zone used as an outdoor bar. Here's what I wrote on June 14,  few days after Phillips announced its separation from Harborplace and after chatter had begun about its relocation into ESPN Zone had: "If that does happen, it could give Phillips something the Harborplace location never could - a waterside setting for outdoor crab feasting.

Cordish Cos. CEO David Cordish will share a "major" Power Plant announcement at a press conference scheduled for 11:30 a.m. Thursday. The announcement could either confirm or put an end to the speculation that Phillips Seafood will be moving into ESPN space at the Power Plant. The press conference is, however, scheduled two hours before plans for exterior renovations to the Power Plant for Phillips were scheduled to be presented to the city's Urban Design and Architecture Review Panel.

Cordish and Phillips are still not holding hands in public, but a blabbermouth city agency may have spilled the beans about their courtship. Plans to renovate the Power Plant exterior for a new Phillips Seafood restaurant are on the agenda of the city's Urban Design and Architecture Review Panel. The agenda for the July 14 is here . Phillips announced it was ending its 31-year marriage to Harborplace last month, and since then, reps of the seafood restaurant and the Cordish-operated Power Plant have steadfastly pooh-poohed talk about Phillips moving across the harbor intoESPN's old bed in the Power Plant.

Phillips Seafood, an original Harborplace tenant that is closing its restaurant there Sept. 30, will show a city design panel plans Thursday for a new establishment at the Power Plant, in space left vacant by ESPN Zone when it closed last summer. The city's Urban Design and Architecture Review Panel is scheduled to review plans by Phillips and architecture firm Design Collective. Robert M. Quilter, a design planner in the city's Department of Planning, said the plans call for new windows on the East Pratt Street side of the Power Plant.

I'm pretty sure Greg Brady tried this, but maybe it was Parker Lewis. We just couldn't figure out why Cordish and Phillips were being so coy about their relationship - weren't they in love like everybody thought? It's their business, of course, and there any number of explanations for their public denials, including the possiblity that Cordish has always thought that Phillips was super stuck up and that Phillips wouldn't have moved into the Power Plant if it were the last place in the whole Inner Harbor!

The Cordish Cos. is seeking $3 million worth of rent breaks on two city-owned properties near the Pier 4 Power Plant complex in exchange for making $6 million to $9 million worth of improvements to help keep existing tenants and attract new ones — possibly including a branch of Maryland-based Phillips Seafood restaurants. Company principals David Cordish and Zed Smith met Thursday with directors of the Baltimore Development Corp. behind closed doors to outline their plans for improving the Power Plant, explain why they are seeking financial assistance from the city and describe how they would apply proceeds from any rent abatement.

Pointing to legal opposition that set the project back several months, the Cordish Cos. has scrapped plans to begin casino operations at Arundel Mills mall by the end of this year — a decision that will cost the state an estimated $70 million in expected revenue for education. The Baltimore-based company now plans to open its casino in stages, beginning next June with 2,750 machines. Cordish plans to have the entire 4,750-machine project completed by October 2012. While Arundel slots will be delayed, Baltimore City can move forward in its own lengthy battle to open a slots casino.