Lease

Four trucks laden with 100 slot machines arrived early Wednesday morning at the nearly completed casino at Arundel Mills mall. For the next two hours, workers wheeled banks of the gleaming new machines, one by one, inside on hand trucks. Installation of the first set of slots moved Maryland Live! Casino, the state's largest, another step closer to its scheduled opening in three months. That's progress for Maryland's lackluster gambling program, which has yet to be fully implemented more than three years after voters approved five slots locations statewide.

Two floors remain to be leased at Towson City Center, the 12-story building on York Road near the Towson roundabout that is being revived from its previous life as Towson's Investment Building. Leasing firm Cassidy Turley said Wednesday that only the fifth and sixth floors of the 157,712-square-foot building remained unleased. Towson City Center is slated to open in July. The largest single tenant for the building will be Towson University, which has leased four floors, totaling nearly 58,000 square feet of space.

Joe Bartenfelder, a farmer and Baltimore County councilman who is running for county executive, grows hay for his daughter's horses on the bulk of a plot that he leases from Baltimore City — not even a cash crop for this hard-working farm family that shows up every single weekend of the year at Baltimore's local farmers markets. ("City to raise county councilman's rent," May 21.) He may be growing hay, but he's not the one making it. That old expression refers to those who take advantage of favorable circumstances.

The helmet looks much the way it did when Morris Hunt wore it into a burning building on Leadenhall Street in the summer of 1965. He managed to get out, but he didn't survive. His daughter, Drue Jenkins, came to the Baltimore Fire Museum in the old station of Engine 6 on Gay Street, lifted the helmet off a shelf and put it on her head. She was just 2 years old when her father died, she said, and the helmet is "all I have left of him. " On Saturday, Jenkins and others came to the museum for Old-Timers Day, not just to reminisce about the station built in 1853 — it still has a hayloft from the days of horse-drawn engines — but to worry that the exhibition was the last.

The Marble Bar at the Congress Hotel was quietly re-listed again last week. The bar/club, which once hosted the likes of R.E.M. and Iggy Pop, went up for lease in December at an undisclosed price. But it seems no offers materialized. Congress Financial, which bought the hotel last year, retired the bar from the market several months ago, said Henry Deford, the JBL Real estate agent handling the property. The company listed it for lease because, with all 36 units at the once iconic hotel filled, it also wants to revive the bar, Deford said last year.

Pacific Trade International of Rockville has leased 117,200 square feet of space at the Baymeadow Industrial Park in Glen Burnie and intends to establish a warehouse, manufacturing and distribution center there by late 2010 for its line of Chesapeake Bay Candle products. Jim Caronna and John Boote of NAI KLNB represented the landlord, Stats LLC, and Scott Skogmo of Sperry Van Ness/Skogmo Commercial Real Estate represented the tenant. The building at 6720 Baymeadow Drive was previously occupied by Reliable Liquors.

Ripley's Believe It or Not! is negotiating a lease to open a museum at Harborplace, a person with knowledge of the deal said Thursday. The company, known for its "odditoriums," also has a location in Ocean City as well as attractions around the country and world. Ripley's arrival would be the latest event in a burst of tenant activity at the shopping complex in downtown Baltimore. Phillips Seafood announced last week that it was leaving Harborplace. General Growth Properties, the owner of Harborplace, announced shortly afterward that Bubba Gump Shrimp would take the seafood restaurant's place.

Peabody Heights Brewery, formerly called Charm City Brewing Company, has signed a lease this month for a bottling plant near Waverly , in the Abell neighborhood. The lease puts it one step closer to becoming the first large-scale brewery to open within city limits in over 30 years. Spearheaded by Stephen Demczuk, owner of Baltimore-Washington Beer Works, and entrepreneur J. Hollis Albert, the brewery expects to be open for business as early as May, though Demczuk says a June launch is more likely.  Peabody will have a 30-barrel brewhouse that its owners hope will eventually produce 40,000 barrels a year of several kinds of beers already made by some of Baltimore's microbrewers.

Three companies have signed leases for space in the newest building at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County's BWTech research and technology park in Catonsville. The companies are the Research Group, the Maryland Business Roundtable for Education and a Subway Cafe, an upscale version of the fast-food sandwich restaurant. The Research Group is moving from offices in downtown Baltimore to an 8,000-square-foot office in the building, located at 5520 Research Park Drive. The Maryland Business Roundtable for Education, a coalition of business leaders working to improve public education in the state, is occupying 3,500 square feet.

Three years after losing its anchor tenant, a Baltimore County shopping center might soon find new life as home to a community college, job training and government offices. Officials say Randallstown Shopping Plaza, which has lost Giant Food and several other businesses in recent years, meets the requirements for a satellite campus of Baltimore County Community College, a trade school, administrative offices for the county Department of Social Services, the Office of Sustainability and a center to assist and train job-seekers.

In Baltimore one man is about to lose half of his cat family. And he'd like your help. Matt writes Unleashed: My name is Matt and I have 4 wonderful cats!  I am contacting you, because I am having some issues with my landlord in regards to the cats, and was wondering if you may have some advice, or know someone who may be able to help... In short; I was forced to contact a city inspector to have my apartment inspected for any code violations.  The landlord has since received the inspectors report; outlining several code violations, and is retaliating.

It is the clearest sign of the direction historic preservation may be going: Even a building called Government House, a 19th-century mansion in Baltimore's Midtown neighborhood, is now in private hands. While some history buffs were horrified to learn last week that cash-strapped Baltimore is considering the sale or lease of 15 other historic properties — prompting fears that "For Sale By Owner" signs would sprout on such icons as the Shot Tower and the War Memorial Building — preservationists say that, increasingly, this is what cities and states must do to save them.

Baltimore City Community College received a $200,000 payment under "potentially questionable" circumstances from a company that was leasing it space, according to a state legislative audit released Wednesday. The matter has been referred to the attorney general's office for further review. The inquiry is the latest trouble for an institution that is battling to keep its accreditation and to build healthier relations between faculty and top administrators. The college says the $200,000 payment was a "contribution" from its landlord at the Maryland BioPark in West Baltimore.

Peabody Heights Brewery, formerly called Charm City Brewing Company, has signed a lease this month for a bottling plant near Waverly , in the Abell neighborhood. The lease puts it one step closer to becoming the first large-scale brewery to open within city limits in over 30 years. Spearheaded by Stephen Demczuk, owner of Baltimore-Washington Beer Works, and entrepreneur J. Hollis Albert, the brewery expects to be open for business as early as May, though Demczuk says a June launch is more likely.  Peabody will have a 30-barrel brewhouse that its owners hope will eventually produce 40,000 barrels a year of several kinds of beers already made by some of Baltimore's microbrewers.

Major League Soccer United signs two-year lease to stay at RFK D.C. Unitedwill play its home games for the 2012 and 2013 Major League Soccer seasons at RFK Stadium, which has been its field since the team's inception in 1996. In addition to the lease agreement, Events DC also announced Thursday a multimillion-dollar capital improvement project that will include improved concourse lighting and renovated restrooms at the stadium and new bleachers, upgraded sound system and renovated restrooms at the DC Armory.

A study of how or whether to allow a controversial drilling method for extracting natural gas in Western Maryland cannot be finished without funding, state officials told lawmakers Tuesday. O'Malley administration officials joined environmentalists in supporting a bill that would pay for their year-old study of hydraulic fracturing by levying a fee on the estimated 150,000 acres leased for gas exploration in Garrett and Allegany counties. Business and oil industry representatives opposed the fee, arguing that it could dampen prospects for drilling to boost the economically depressed region.

F rom the state that brought you electricity deregulation - we know how that worked! - comes a new plan to surrender crucial public assets to a private corporation. Today, the Maryland Board of Public Works votes on whether to lease Baltimore's premier port terminal to Ports America for 50 years. It's the final state approval the company needs to control the maritime artery that has nourished Baltimore for two centuries. Pushed by Gov. Martin O'Malley, who wants the $245 million Ports America would put up for port and highway spending, the transaction shows every sign of getting approved.

The state Board of Public Works approved Wednesday a 50-year lease that will allow a private company to manage operations at the port of Baltimore. Officials say the deal will generate at least $1.3 billion and 5,700 new jobs. As part of the agreement, Ports of America Group will create a 50-foot-deep berth and purchase four cranes to help prepare Seagirt Marine Terminal for larger cargo ships that are expected after widening of the Panama Canal is completed in about four years.

Annapolis housing officials have confirmed that city Alderman Kenneth A. Kirby is not an approved tenant or visitor of a city-owned apartment where he was found during a drug raid earlier this month. Kirby faced questions about his residency after the Jan. 5 raid of two apartments, with housing officials investigating whether he was staying there in violation of a lease agreement. Police have said Kirby is not accused of any wrongdoing in connection with the drug raid. Housing Authority chief operating officer Joseph Johnson told The Capital in Annapolis that the agency's paperwork does not list Kirby as a tenant or visitor of the city-owned apartment in the Harbour House community.

Developers have finished work on a $53 million apartment and retail complex that is expected to help revitalize the Route 1 corridor in Howard County. The 262-unit Mission Place in Jessup is already more than 90 percent leased and includes a pharmacy and barbershop, with additional retailers set to arrive this year, principals of The Dolben Co. Inc. said Tuesday. The complex, at Washington Boulevard and Mission Road, offers one- and two-bedroom apartments, a fitness center, catering kitchen, theater and pool.