Corporate Headquarters

I note with admiration and respect the substantial philanthropic commitments of both Under Armour founder Kevin Plank and Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti to Baltimore City's schools, and to the Baltimore region generally. However, I find The Sun's recognition of their significant corporate citizenship to the region ("Protecting Baltimore's house," June 11) strangely out of sync with past statements about the irrelevance of losing other corporate headquarters. Specifically, on these same pages, The Sun considered whether the loss of Constellation Energy, our last Fortune 500 company, had any relevance ("America's branch town," March 18)

I note with admiration and respect the substantial philanthropic commitments of both Under Armour founder Kevin Plank and Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti to Baltimore City's schools, and to the Baltimore region generally. However, I find The Sun's recognition of their significant corporate citizenship to the region ("Protecting Baltimore's house," June 11) strangely out of sync with past statements about the irrelevance of losing other corporate headquarters. Specifically, on these same pages, The Sun considered whether the loss of Constellation Energy, our last Fortune 500 company, had any relevance ("America's branch town," March 18)

Jos. A. Bank Clothiers Inc. has decided to move out of its current corporate headquarters in Owings Mills by July 1, according to an official at MacKenzie & Associates, the developer of the office park the retailer is leaving.Robert J. Aumiller, executive vice president of MacKenzie, said yesterday that Bank is vacating 54,000 square feet of office space at McDonough Crossroads on Reisterstown Road in an effort to "reduce its overhead."Bank, which operates a chain of 40 retail stores in 27 cities, is currently restructuring its debt.

It's never a good thing to lose a corporate headquarters, particularly the last Fortune 500 company in town. None of the purported benefits Constellation Energy Group is trotting out to pretty up its proposed sale to Exelon Corp. of Chicago changes that fact. But it is also no surprise that Constellation would be sold. CEO Mayo A. Shattuck III has clearly been aiming for such a deal for years, and has tried it twice before. It's only a matter of time before he succeeds, and this deal, at least, is not so bad for Baltimore as it might have been.

Sykesville residents have another opportunity today to review plans for a $3.5 million corporate headquarters proposed for a neighborhood at the northern edge of town.Fairhaven Retirement Community plans to build its office center on a 3-acre parcel across from its main entrance on Third Avenue.The proposal has spawned heated debate, which is expected to continue at a public hearing Monday. After that hearing, the Town Council is expected to vote on a rezoning petition. Changing the property from residential to business zoning would allow construction to proceed.

Erickson Retirement Communities, which develops and operates retirement communities in 11 states, laid off 260 employees Wednesday, a 2 percent staff reduction that the Catonsville-based company blamed on the deepening recession. Most of the cuts came at corporate headquarters, Erickson said in an announcement yesterday. The company, which operates 20 communities and has 13,000 employees, said a decision to slow its aggressive growth and development plans led to cuts in full- and part-time staff in construction, development and corporate support functions.

By eliminating nearly 700 jobs yesterday, troubled discounter Kmart Corp. positioned itself to emerge from bankruptcy but not necessarily to survive long-term, retail and turnaround experts said. The Troy, Mich.-based retailer, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy more than a year ago and plans to emerge by April 30, said it needs fewer workers at its corporate headquarters - where most of the layoffs occurred - to support a shrinking store base. The chain is to close 317 stores in the next month, including Maryland stores in Catonsville, Westminster and Joppatowne.

The corporate headquarters of National Computer Services Inc. has become the second tenant at the Owings Mills Commerce Center, a 35-acre business park under development off Interstate 795.The company, which offers programming and time-sharing services as well as high-volume laser printing, will occupy about 10,000 square feet in the center's Building A.

Awards Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse received a MAXI Merit International Council of Shopping Centers award for its sales promotion and event initiative for the Belvedere Square shopping center. Open Basco Shower Enclosures opened a ware- house/showroom distribution center in Jessup. Organizations The Maryland State Medical Society (MedChi) elected Dr. Scott D. Hagaman, a Catonsville psychiatrist, president. Relocations Curry Architects relocated its offices to the Inner Harbor at the Power Plant Live on Pratt Street.

Northrop Grumman Corp.'s announcement earlier this year that it was on the hunt for a new corporate headquarters in the Washington, D.C., region presented Maryland with a rare opportunity to not only attract another Fortune 100 company to its fold, but also take a new and more aggressive approach to economic development. Maryland leaders recognized that attracting quality firms requires a high-level, coordinated effort. Gov. Martin O'Malley and the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development brought together Team Maryland, a unified, nonpartisan group that included the state's congressional leaders, state, county and legislative partners, and a CEO Workgroup that included top members of Maryland's business community to present Maryland's case to Northrop Grumman.

Baltimore marketing and communications firm gkv plans to move by early 2011 from Tide Point on Hull Street to the McHenry Row development under construction in Locust Point. The ad agency announced Wednesday that it has negotiated a 10-year lease to occupy at least 18,000 square feet of office space at the $117 million McHenry Row complex at Woodall Street and Fort Avenue. The firm will have its name on the exterior of a five-story building there. With 85 employees, gkv is the largest of three office tenants to sign up for space in the project, and its move makes the 65,000-square-foot office portion 75 percent leased.

Northrop Grumman Corp.'s announcement earlier this year that it was on the hunt for a new corporate headquarters in the Washington, D.C., region presented Maryland with a rare opportunity to not only attract another Fortune 100 company to its fold, but also take a new and more aggressive approach to economic development. Maryland leaders recognized that attracting quality firms requires a high-level, coordinated effort. Gov. Martin O'Malley and the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development brought together Team Maryland, a unified, nonpartisan group that included the state's congressional leaders, state, county and legislative partners, and a CEO Workgroup that included top members of Maryland's business community to present Maryland's case to Northrop Grumman.

For more than a century, Black & Decker has been a part of the Maryland business community, and so this week's announcement that a planned merger with rival toolmaker The Stanley Works will mean the loss of a corporate headquarters and 250 high-paying jobs is far from welcome. Baltimore-area residents have long taken pride in home-built Black & Decker. The Towson-based company is not only an important employer but a major force in local philanthropy. And losing a Fortune 500 headquarters represents no small blow to the community's prestige.

Erickson Retirement Communities, a struggling developer that has built retirement communities in 11 states, is working to separate its building and management entities, restructure debt and bring in an equity investor. The Catonsville-based company's real estate arm, which acquires land for campuses and builds projects, has been burdened by heavy debt amid the recession, Mel Tansill, a spokesman, said Monday. "The real estate side ... has been greatly impacted by the national recession, causing debt that we will work to eliminate through the business separation of the two entities," Tansill said in an e-mail.

Media research firm Arbitron Inc. said yesterday that it is relocating its corporate headquarters from New York City to Columbia, where most of its employees work. Michael Skarzynski, Arbitron's president and chief executive officer, said in a statement that he and other executives should live and work in Columbia because it is where most of the company's research is done. "He wanted to be where the action is, where the people who will execute the decisions are," said Thom Mocarsky, an Arbitron spokesman.

Erickson Retirement Communities, which develops and operates retirement communities in 11 states, laid off 260 employees Wednesday, a 2 percent staff reduction that the Catonsville-based company blamed on the deepening recession. Most of the cuts came at corporate headquarters, Erickson said in an announcement yesterday. The company, which operates 20 communities and has 13,000 employees, said a decision to slow its aggressive growth and development plans led to cuts in full- and part-time staff in construction, development and corporate support functions.

GTS Duratek, a Columbia environmental services and technology company, broke ground yesterday for a 35,000-square-foot corporate headquarters at 10100 Columbia Road in the Rivers Center near Kings Contrivance.The headquarters, projected to be completed in early December, will more than doublethe company's current site at 8955 Guilford Road in the Rivers Business Commons.A spokeswoman said the company plans to add 25 to 30 workers in the next two to three years. The company increased its staff by 70 percent in the last three years.

IF ATTRACTING the headquarters of one of America's largest publicly traded companies is a measure of good economic health, Howard County is in the pink.Luring Magellan Health Services Inc. to move to Columbia from Atlanta, which of late has been a destination for corporate headquarters, is a coup.It is further evidence that Maryland is an attractive place to do business.One of the nation's largest managed-care organizations, Magellan is familiar with Maryland. It employs about 600 people in Columbia and another 300 around the state.

Constellation Energy's glass-encased office building will still host conference calls. Executives will buy lunch for clients. The charity golf game will go on. Much will survive the looming takeover of Baltimore's last Fortune 500 company. But the city, some say, is in store for a significant, if ephemeral, loss: prestige. If Des Moines-based MidAmerican Energy Holding Co.'s plans go forward, home-grown Constellation goes from Baltimore big shot to a box somewhere in the middle of Warren Buffett's vast organization chart.

AirTran Holdings Inc. reported yesterday that it narrowed its fourth-quarter loss by offsetting rising fuel costs with higher fares and fuller airplanes. The No. 2 airline at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport reported a net loss of $2.2 million, or 2 cents per share, for the quarter that ended Dec. 31. That compares with a loss of $3.6 million, or 4 cents per share, for the fourth quarter of 2006. Revenue soared 27 percent to $583.8 million. For the year, AirTran reported net income of $52.7 million, or 56 cents per share.