Marine Biotechnology

A Baltimore Circuit judge approved the sale yesterday of the financially insolvent Columbus Center in Baltimore's Inner Harbor to the University System of Maryland for $650,000.Approving the deal in a brief two-page order, Judge Joseph H. H. Kaplan overruled an objection to the sale filed by J. Stanley Heuisler, the former head of the marine biotechnology facility, who complained in court papers that the purchase price was too low.John Lippincott, associate vice chancellor of the university, said he was pleased by the decision.

There's something lurking in Baltimore Harbor mud that seems to be chewing up the toxic PCBs left there by decades of industrial activity. If scientists can figure out what's going on, they might find ways to unleash the microbes on tainted waterways across the country.Kevin Sowers, a microbiologist at the University of Maryland's Center of Marine Biotechnology (COMB) has been pulling muck from the harbor slips around his laboratory at the Columbus Center, cultivating the microbes that live in it, and watching them slice up the PCB molecules.

The Columbus Center's name will change and vacant offices there will be leased to nonprofit groups, but most aspects of the marine biotechnology institute at Baltimore's Inner Harbor will remain the same.That was the assessment yesterday of the top official of the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute after this week's agreement by the university system to purchase the financially troubled facility."It won't be called the Columbus Center," said Peter P. McCann, interim president of the institute, which would operate the building.

The University of Maryland is negotiating to take over operation of the financially troubled Columbus Center in Baltimore's Inner Harbor amid preparations by a court-appointed receiver to auction the marine biotechnology facility's assets.University marine biotechnology researchers lease about two-thirds of the center, which declared itself insolvent June 30, saying it was unable to pay $7.5 million in debts.Since December -- when the center abruptly closed its high-technology exhibition hall seven months after it opened -- the university has paid the maintenance costs of the $160 million building, not just the portion for which it is responsible under its 25-year lease.

The former head of the Columbus Center is criticizing the sale of the financially insolvent marine biotechnology facility in Baltimore's Inner Harbor to the University System of Maryland, calling the $650,000 purchase price a "relatively minuscule contribution."In a formal legal objection to the sale, J. Stanley Heuisler, the founding board chairman and former chief executive officer of the nonprofit corporation created to set up and run the center, complained that the price would allow the university system to assume ownership of the facility for less than 1 percent of its value.

The Columbus Center's Hall of Exploration was packed yesterday -- not with people wanting to see its exhibits, which have been closed for nearly a year, but with bargain-hunters looking to buy them at a discount.The occasion was the public auction of assets of the insolvent Columbus Center Development Corp., the former nonprofit manager of the marine biotechnology facility in Baltimore's Inner Harbor that said in June it could not pay off its debts.About $140,000 was raised yesterday to pay off creditors of the Columbus Center, which a court-appointed receiver last week agreed to sell to the University System of Maryland.

A report commissioned by two General Assembly committees on the debt-laden and partly empty Columbus Center suggests uses ranging from a museum school for schoolchildren to an outreach center dealing with ports and other urban waterways.In a hearing scheduled for today, the House Committee on Appropriations and the Senate Committee on Budget and Taxation will discuss the report, which was drafted by the state Department of Business and Economic Development, the University System of Maryland, and the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute.

The former head of the Columbus Center is criticizing the sale of the financially insolvent marine biotechnology facility in Baltimore's Inner Harbor to the University System of Maryland, calling the $650,000 purchase price a "relatively minuscule contribution."In a formal legal objection to the sale, J. Stanley Heuisler, the founding board chairman and former chief executive officer of the nonprofit corporation created to set up and run the center, complained that the price would allow the university system to assume ownership of the facility for less than 1 percent of its value.

ORGANIZERS OF THE shuttered Columbus Center Hall of Exploration learned the hard way that "build it and they will come" is an incomplete concept.The full marketing concept, used in its abbreviated form in the movie "Field of Dreams," goes something like this: "Build it and they will come -- provided the attraction is well-promoted, hits its target audience, compels visitors to return and uses its space well."The lessons of the now-closed exhibition space of the Columbus Center and the failed City Life Museums in Baltimore, both hopelessly in debt and lacking in popularity, is that a handsome facility does not guarantee a successful tourism enterprise.

Columbus Center board members met behind closed doors yesterday with the mayor and Baltimore's chief budget officer to discuss how to help the financially troubled marine science center.None of the participants would discuss details of the 45-minute meeting at City Hall. But Stanley Heuisler, president of the Columbus Center Development Inc., intimated in an interview before the meeting that a city-financed cash bailout would be among the options that would be presented to the city."We have an operating budget where our expenses exceed our revenues.

Yonathan Zohar beams like a proud parent as he cradles the freshly netted fish in his hands. He didn't catch this glistening branzini. He raised it - and thousands more - in large fiberglass tanks at the Columbus Center at the Inner Harbor. "This is a happy moment here," says Zohar, director of the Center of Marine Biotechnology at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute. "Green fish, as good as it gets. Clean, environmentally friendly, sushi-quality fish, delivered to the restaurant a few hours after harvesting."

The future of Chesapeake Bay's blue crab industry could be taking shape in huge blue tanks and tiny petri dishes in a laboratory at the Inner Harbor, where University of Maryland researchers are creating a science around the crab's life cycle. They hope to use what they learn in the basement of the Center of Marine Biotechnology to re-stock the bay with hatchery-grown juvenile crabs. "We're using the tools of biotechnology to study and better understand the fundamental process of the blue crab life cycles," says Yohnathan Zohar, director of the Center of Marine Biotechnology.

Tourism officials are looking into renovating the failed Hall of Exploration at the Columbus Center for use as Baltimore's visitors center at the suggestion of the mayor and a University of Maryland official. "We are exploring from a feasibility standpoint how we can convert that space into a functioning visitors center and maintain the important programming elements we need," said Carroll R. Armstrong, president and chief executive officer of the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association.

There's something lurking in Baltimore Harbor mud that seems to be chewing up the toxic PCBs left there by decades of industrial activity. If scientists can figure out what's going on, they might find ways to unleash the microbes on tainted waterways across the country.Kevin Sowers, a microbiologist at the University of Maryland's Center of Marine Biotechnology (COMB) has been pulling muck from the harbor slips around his laboratory at the Columbus Center, cultivating the microbes that live in it, and watching them slice up the PCB molecules.

A Baltimore Circuit judge approved the sale yesterday of the financially insolvent Columbus Center in Baltimore's Inner Harbor to the University System of Maryland for $650,000.Approving the deal in a brief two-page order, Judge Joseph H. H. Kaplan overruled an objection to the sale filed by J. Stanley Heuisler, the former head of the marine biotechnology facility, who complained in court papers that the purchase price was too low.John Lippincott, associate vice chancellor of the university, said he was pleased by the decision.

The former head of the Columbus Center is criticizing the sale of the financially insolvent marine biotechnology facility in Baltimore's Inner Harbor to the University System of Maryland, calling the $650,000 purchase price a "relatively minuscule contribution."In a formal legal objection to the sale, J. Stanley Heuisler, the founding board chairman and former chief executive officer of the nonprofit corporation created to set up and run the center, complained that the price would allow the university system to assume ownership of the facility for less than 1 percent of its value.

The former head of the Columbus Center is criticizing the sale of the financially insolvent marine biotechnology facility in Baltimore's Inner Harbor to the University System of Maryland, calling the $650,000 purchase price a "relatively minuscule contribution."In a formal legal objection to the sale, J. Stanley Heuisler, the founding board chairman and former chief executive officer of the nonprofit corporation created to set up and run the center, complained that the price would allow the university system to assume ownership of the facility for less than 1 percent of its value.

The Columbus Center's Hall of Exploration was packed yesterday -- not with people wanting to see its exhibits, which have been closed for nearly a year, but with bargain-hunters looking to buy them at a discount.The occasion was the public auction of assets of the insolvent Columbus Center Development Corp., the former nonprofit manager of the marine biotechnology facility in Baltimore's Inner Harbor that said in June it could not pay off its debts.About $140,000 was raised yesterday to pay off creditors of the Columbus Center, which a court-appointed receiver last week agreed to sell to the University System of Maryland.

The Columbus Center's name will change and vacant offices there will be leased to nonprofit groups, but most aspects of the marine biotechnology institute at Baltimore's Inner Harbor will remain the same.That was the assessment yesterday of the top official of the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute after this week's agreement by the university system to purchase the financially troubled facility."It won't be called the Columbus Center," said Peter P. McCann, interim president of the institute, which would operate the building.

The University of Maryland is negotiating to take over operation of the financially troubled Columbus Center in Baltimore's Inner Harbor amid preparations by a court-appointed receiver to auction the marine biotechnology facility's assets.University marine biotechnology researchers lease about two-thirds of the center, which declared itself insolvent June 30, saying it was unable to pay $7.5 million in debts.Since December -- when the center abruptly closed its high-technology exhibition hall seven months after it opened -- the university has paid the maintenance costs of the $160 million building, not just the portion for which it is responsible under its 25-year lease.