East Hotel

When Marriott International Inc. begins operating a pair of new lodging projects being built in Inner Harbor East, it will manage 41 percent of all the hotel rooms downtown, giving the Bethesda-based company a significant advantage over local competition.In all, Marriott will operate four distinctly different hotels downtown containing 2,104 rooms beginning in early 2001, and be the only company to manage multiple hospitality properties in the city."The obvious synergy is that they'll be able to refer business to one another," said Warren Marr, director of hospitality and leisure consulting at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, one of the nation's top hotel counseling firms.

Rawlings questions site selection, calls for smaller Inner 0) Harbor East hotelIn the Aug. 24 Sun, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke attempted to defend the decision to commit substantial public resources to a planned hotel in Inner Harbor East. I must take issue with his arguments.The location of a new major hotel is crucial to the success of the Baltimore Convention Center and the continued economic development of the Inner Harbor. The state and city together have invested more than $150 million in the Convention Center recently and continue to support its operating deficits.

Preliminary plans for a red brick and glass hotel near Harbor East were approved Thursday by the city's architectural review panel. The structure, at South Central Avenue and Fleet Street, also will have about 14,000 square feet for retail and restaurants on the first floor, said Neil Tucker, a partner with Chesapeake Real Estate Group LLC. It's too early to name retailers, he said, but that they will be equivalent in quality to retailers currently...

THE PUBLIC torment of Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke over where to build a new hotel offers at least one political lesson:A leader needs to be a salesman and an educator, particularly when he's about to do something that seems to defy common sense.Schmoke's problem was clear months ago. He wanted a new downtown hotel, and he wanted the builder to be John Paterakis Sr., a wealthy Baltimore baker with many financial interests.Paterakis wanted to build at Inner Harbor East, a mile or so from the city's newly renovated Convention Center, perhaps the heart of Baltimore's tenuous grip on economic viability.

Hundreds of residents have been relocated and dozens of homes cleared from Baltimore's Middle East neighborhood in recent years. Now the area just north of Johns Hopkins Hospital may be losing something more: its name. As an ambitious redevelopment project with biotech research labs, corporate offices and homes reshapes the neighborhood, the area is being marketed around the yet-to-be-built Eager Park - a strategy that upsets some longtime residents. "They want it to sound like there's no history here until they got here," said Donald Gresham, a leader of the now-defunct Save Middle East Action Committee, created more than a decade ago to oppose the displacement of residents.

Highlights in Annapolis today:House of Delegates meets at 10 a.m., House chamber.Senate convenes at 10 a.m., Senate chamber.House Commerce and Government Matters Committee holds hearing on HB 317 to require a referendum on Inner Harbor East hotel, 1: 15 p.m., Room 140, House office building.House Judiciary Committee holds hearing on HB 972 to help state's lawsuit against tobacco industry, 2 p.m., Joint Hearing Room, Legislative Services Building.Pub Date: 3/12/98

Baltimore firefighters brought a two-alarm blaze under control Tuesday afternoon at an East Baltimore hotel. There were no reports of injuries. The fire was reported about 12:20 p.m. at the Baltimore Travel Center hotel, in the 5500 block of O'Donnell St., just east of Interstate 95, according to Capt. Roman Clark, a fire spokesman. The fire on the roof and second floor of the hotel was contained just before 1 p.m., he said. The fire caused the evacuation of about 30 guests, according to Clark.

Delegates reject measure to require voters' OK for hotelBaltimore's House delegation voted yesterday to reject a bill that would have required voter approval for the Inner Harbor East hotel, all but guaranteeing the measure's defeat in the legislature.In a heated meeting, city delegates voted 10-8 against the bill. It would have sent the controversial Wyndham hotel project to referendum in November, along with the Grand Hyatt proposed next to the Convention Center. City senators voted against the proposal earlier in the week.

A Baltimore judge refused yesterday to reconsider a ruling striking down millions of dollars in tax breaks for the planned Wyndham Inner Harbor East Hotel.Baltimore Circuit Judge Richard T. Rombro's decision to uphold his November ruling eliminating $75 million in tax breaks for the 31-story hotel sets the stage for a lengthy appeal, and possibly a campaign to alter state laws in the next General Assembly session.In rejecting a motion by the $134 million hotel's developers to reconsider the ruling, Rombro reiterated that "payment in lieu of taxes" (PILOT)

With the backdrop of clanging hammers and whirring cranes, mayoral candidate A. Robert Kaufman criticized his opponents' fund-raising efforts yesterday and their alleged ties to big business.Kaufman, the Democrat founder of the City Wide Coalition, delivered his comments at President and Fleet streets, the site of the under-construction Wyndham International Inner Harbor East Hotel. Kaufman, 68, criticized the city's plans to grant its owners an estimated $85 million in property tax breaks as evidence for campaign contribution reform.