Headquarters

PNC Financial Services Group has notified several hundred employees of Mercantile Bankshares Corp., the Baltimore bank it acquired this year, that their jobs are being eliminated as the financial institutions merge back-office and administrative operations. Affected employees were informed by a manager and human resources representative during individual meetings that began last week. They discussed severance and other opportunities at Pittsburgh-based PNC, which has 200 job openings in Maryland, and the employees were given at least two more months before they have to leave.

Legg Mason Inc. said yesterday that it will not leave Baltimore after the lease on its office expires in 2009, but declined to say it is committed to staying in the signature tower that bears its name. The money manager's comments came after a city official said yesterday that the mayor's office and economic development officials have been working with the company for more than a year to make sure it stays in town. Legg and its roughly 1,000 employees are part of a cornerstone in the downtown business community, and its name is a prominent feature of the city's skyline.

Averting a serious blow to Maryland's business image, state and Montgomery County officials jubilantly announced yesterday that they had won the bidding war with Virginia to keep Marriott International Inc.'s headquarters and 3,500 employees from moving across the Potomac River.Marriott Chairman J. W. "Bill" Marriott Jr. joined Gov. Parris N. Glendening and other politicians at a State House news conference to unveil combined state and county pledges of $31.7 million to $44.2 million in grants and tax breaks for the company.

Fairhaven Retirement Community's plan to build a $3.5 million headquarters has several of its Sykesville neighbors clamoring for the complex to keep its distance.Episcopal Ministries to the Aging, Fairhaven's parent company, angered homeowners along Springfield and Central avenues recently when it announced plans to build corporate offices adjacent to their residences."Would you want an office building in your back yard?" asked Debbi Lamb of Central Avenue. "I have no problem with Fairhaven as neighbors, but not next door."

THE TRAVAILS of London Fog Industries Inc. have been known for years. So the struggling rainwear manufacturer's bankruptcy filing this month is not a total surprise.The firm, with a distribution center and headquarters employing 275 people in Eldersburg, is dumping its outlet store leases and cutting costs in a last-ditch effort to survive.Employees at the Carroll County facility -- 40 percent of the work force there five years ago -- will keep their jobs for the time being. But the new chief executive, William Dragon Jr., may move the 150-person headquarters to his home base of Seattle; 20 Eldersburg jobs have already been relocated.

State aviation agency to hold career fairThe Maryland Aviation Administration will be host of a Baltimore-Washington International Airport Career Fair from noon to 8 p.m. May 25.Employers from the airport and surrounding areas will interview prospective employees and make job offers.Workshops on resume writing and interviewing skills will be available.Information: 410-859-7725.Conference to address distribution of produceThe Cooperative Extension Services of land grant universities in Delaware, Maryland and Virginia will co-sponsor a mid-Atlantic regional post-harvest handling conference May 25-27 at the Sheraton Inn, Fredericksburg, Va.The training will prepare producers, extension educators and agricultural researchers to understand and implement a systematic post-harvest program for marketing vegetables and small fruit, such as berries, in the mid-Atlantic area.

State economic development officials made the "largest and most aggressive" financial incentives offer in Maryland history yesterday to Marriott International Inc. in a bid to keep the hotel giant's headquarters and more than 3,700 employees in Montgomery County.Although state and county officials refused to reveal specifics, sources with knowledge of the incentives offer said it is more than $50 million, a figure Marriott had indicated that it would require to stay in Maryland."It is a full and fair offer.

The Ryland Group Inc., one of the nation's largest homebuilders and headquartered in Columbia since its founding in 1967, will move to California by July.In electing to relocate its headquarters to Los Angeles, Ryland becomes the latest of a string of high-profile, local companies that have been lost through acquisition or movement, including Alex. Brown Inc., USF&G Corp., MNC Financial Inc., Noxell Corp., PHH Corp., Waverly Corp., Commercial Credit Co. and Loyola Capital Corp. among others.

State and Montgomery County officials have made a preliminary offer of roughly $35 million in financial incentives to Marriott International Inc. in an effort to keep the hotel giant's growing headquarters in Maryland.But that figure could rise markedly in the coming weeks, after state economic development officials review wage and salary data from the company. Marriott is expected to supply the information by the end of the month."There is no final offer on the table from us," Richard C. Mike Lewin, secretary of the state's Department of Business and Economic Development, said yesterday, "because we don't have all of the necessary data to do a complete analysis.

BETHESDA -- Marriott International Inc., armed with $44 million in state aid, will spend $85 million to refurbish and expand its headquarters here in an effort to alleviate overcrowding and to accommodate an anticipated 700 new employees, the company announced yesterday.The hotel giant ended months of speculation about its headquarters, after the company pledged in March that its primary base would remain in Montgomery County. In deciding to stay put, Marriott passed over other sites in Bethesda and Rockville.

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.

Black & Decker Corp., the Towson-based toolmaker founded here almost 100 years ago, said Monday that it plans to merge with The Stanley Works in a $4.5 billion all-stock deal that will bring together internationally known brands but reduce the number of local jobs. For the Baltimore region, it is another in a long line of deals relocating corporate headquarters - and the decision-making power, charitable muscle and prestige they represent. Stanley would have controlling interest in the combined company, which would be named Stanley Black & Decker and headquartered in New Britain, Conn.

It's been heartening to see so many of Baltimore's downtown banks and commercial buildings refashioned into busy hotels. But I slipped into a broad smile when I saw the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad logo on the rail giant's former headquarters. The old B&O main office at Charles and Baltimore streets recently reopened as part of the Hotel Monaco chain. I've made a couple of trips to visit this impressive landmark, which suffered a botched renovation in the 1980s. The ripping apart of this grand commercial palace was so painful I had hesitated to step inside its lobby.

Baltimore-based Bravo Health Inc. will expand its Brewers Hill headquarters with room to grow by more than 200 jobs, company officials said Friday. The company now employs 570 people in the office and retail complex on O'Donnell Street in Southeast Baltimore, a redevelopment of two former breweries. Bravo signed a 10-year lease with owner Obrecht Commercial Real Estate for more than 117,000 square feet, said Wells Obrecht, president of Obrecht Commercial. That space includes the current headquarters and operations center in three buildings and 30,000 square feet in the Gunther Bottle Building, which now has stores such as Five Guys fronting Boston Street.

WASHINGTON -The Obama administration's new emphasis on the war in Afghanistan, including a long-term influx of extra forces, has exposed weaknesses in U.S. military planning and development efforts in that country that top officers are scrambling to address. The U.S. military command structure in Afghanistan was designed for a much smaller force. But with the increase ordered by President Barack Obama, the number of U.S. troops will reach 60,000 by the end of summer and is expected to eventually reach 68,000.

The International Union of Painters and Allied Trades is relocating its international headquarters to Hanover in Anne Arundel County and bringing with it nearly 300 jobs, union officials said Wednesday. The union will build a 60,000-square-foot headquarters building on an 11-acre site where it opened a training campus in 2006. It will also construct a 36-unit residence hall where instructors for its training programs can stay while in town. About 175 employees will move from the union's current headquarters near the White House in Washington.

The media research firm Arbitron Inc. said Tuesday that it is slashing 10 percent of its work force and cutting other expenses as new management refocuses the business and tries to deal with the weak economy. Under the plan, 110 full-time positions, including 80 in the Baltimore area, would be eliminated, company spokesman Thom Mocarsky said in phone interview. About 71 percent, or 767, of the company's 1,084 full-time employees work in Columbia, where the company moved its headquarters this month.

Not so long ago, Towson was a place that mirrored this year's Republican National Convention: tons of WASPs, miles of blonds and a door prize for spotting a minority of any sort. Obama for America headquarters came to 40 W. Chesapeake Ave. in late September. Here's what happened at the front desk: A diminutive, 82-year-old, Israeli-American grandmother came in to do whatever was asked of her and said she was worried about making phone calls as people might have trouble with her accent.

For years, the Baltimore schools' bloated North Avenue headquarters staff was the whipping boy for every major challenge the system faced. Whatever the problem, the proposed solution always seemed to involve reassigning headquarters staff to classroom duty. And for whatever reason, school officials always insisted it couldn't be done. Now Baltimore schools chief Andres Alonso has accomplished the impossible. As a result of the budget reorganization he initiated last year, more than 140 headquarters staffers will be headed back to the schools this year, and the system will have a teacher surplus for the first time in decades.

US Lacrosse hopes to move its headquarters from Johns Hopkins University to a new waterfront development adjacent to Fells Point. Officials say that with the sport proliferating rapidly, they've outgrown their 17-year-old space on the Hopkins campus. The proposed waterfront headquarters would cost about $25 million. US Lacrosse hopes to raise the majority of that from private donations and the sale of naming rights but will probably ask the state and city for $7 million. US Lacrosse officials acknowledged that might be a tough sell given the current tight budget times.