Pratt St

Two men were killed and a woman was injured in a house fire on West Pratt Street late last night - a blaze discovered by firefighters driving past the building. The firefighters of Engine Co. 14 were returning from a medical call about 10:50 p.m. when they noticed flames. They were able to extinguish the fire in about 10 minutes, but they were unable to save everyone who was inside. The victims were found on the first floor of the house at 1918 W. Pratt St., according to fire authorities.

A section of Pratt Street in downtown Baltimore will be closed to traffic overnight Sunday as crews construct Baltimore Grand Prix retainer walls, the Department of Transportation said. The road will be closed between Paca and Howard streets starting at 7 p.m. Sunday and will be reopened at 5 a.m. Monday, the department said. Vehicles will be routed around the closed section, the department said. Drivers are encouraged to use alternate routes in the city. The Grand Prix is scheduled from Aug. 31 to Sept.

The 10-story office building at 100 E. Pratt St. is one of the oldest and most recognizable structures in Baltimore's Inner Harbor renewal area, a fixture on the downtown skyline and in the backdrops of local TV newscasts. Now it's also one of the first Inner Harbor buildings to get an extensive interior makeover, 31 years after it opened. T. Rowe Price Group Inc., the investment firm that became one of the building's first tenants when it moved to the eighth and ninth floors 30 years ago this month, has signed a lease to be the sole office tenant on floors two through 10 at least until 2016 - more than 360,000 square feet in all. The first floor will continue to house lobbies and retail space leased by others.

PNC Financial Services Group Inc. plans to move its Greater Maryland regional headquarters from the Charles Center to the Inner Harbor by mid-2012, real estate brokerage CB Richard Ellis announced Tuesday. Bank officials have signed a lease that calls for PNC to occupy 119,000 square feet at One East Pratt St., the brokerage reported. PNC will move from the office tower at Two Hopkins Plaza beginning in July 2012. In addition to upper-level office space, the Pratt Street lease includes 7,000 square feet on the building's first floor to house a PNC Bank branch.

After more than a month of surveillance, plainclothes police officers raided a house early yesterday in Southwest Baltimore, arrested three men and seized a large amount of suspected heroin packaged for street sale. A police spokesman said the officers found 3,200 gel caps and a loaded handgun in the basement of a home in the 2500 block of W. Pratt St. when they entered about 6:45 a.m. The men were involved in a heroin-dealing operation that received large quantities of the illegal drug twice a day, police said.

IBM Corp. is expected to sell its 28-story skyscraper at 100 E. Pratt St. by the end of this month for roughly $137 million, a record price for a downtown Baltimore office project.The anticipated acquisition of the office tower by Boston Properties Inc. would represent the height of the region's four-year office market recovery, local commercial real estate analysts said.Although the high-water mark stems from rising rents and the strength of white-collar job growth in Baltimore, analysts said the project's location across from the Inner Harbor, combined with its size and age, contributed to the sale price.

In 1982, leasing office space at the new Inner Harbor Center at 400 E. Pratt St. was as easy as a cruise. But that was then, and this is now.In 1992, the coming defections of the building's two biggest tenants are shoving it into the ranks of "see-through structures" that have become the signature of real estate's recession.More than 110,000 of the building's 135,000 square feet of office space will be empty as the architecture firm RTKL Associates Inc. and American Telephone & Telegraph Co. move out.Soon, the now-full building will be among the loneliest in Baltimore, with a vacancy rate of more than 80 percent -- about four times as high as the citywide Class A rate.

The economy may have derailed Constellation Energy Group Inc.'s plans to split into two separate businesses, but for now it won't change the company's plans to move into a new headquarters. A spokesman for Constellation said yesterday that the company still intends to anchor the city's first new office building downtown in a decade. The building, on top of an electric substation at 750 E. Pratt St., has been under construction since May. The steel shell of the building is visible from the harbor and the east entrance to downtown from Interstate 83. "Our plans have not changed," said Michael W. Delaney, a company spokesman.

In a deal that preserves a major company headquarters downtown, Sierra Military Health Services Inc. has signed a lease for a floor in a new office tower at 750 E. Pratt St. The deal for 19,685 square feet means the fast-growing military health provider, one of the city's largest companies, will occupy space in three high-profile office buildings in the Inner Harbor, including the 15-story Pratt Street tower, the first major office building to open downtown...

Another hotel may be on the way for the Inner Harbor.Baltimore City Community College announced yesterday its selection of Kravco Co., a Philadelphia-area shopping center developer, and several partners to build an $88 million complex of offices, shops, hotel rooms and parking spaces on one of the tourist district's last big open parcels.The college-owned 2.8-acre site at 500 E. Pratt St. -- a prime spot across from the National Aquarium and the Power Plant -- now contains only the cracked asphalt of a parking lot and the aging Lockwood building of BCCC's Harbor Campus.

Ronnie Brooks, Yanna Foster and Victoria Coleman make up the gospel group Immeasurable. As of last week, they are also the owners of a new soul food restaurant, Immeasurable Chicken & Waffle (1700 W. Pratt St., 888-801-2863). I asked the group's assistant, Michelle Guess, why a gospel group would open a restaurant. "They wanted a place the community could have a good, nonalcoholic time," she said. "They wanted to bring back something positive to Baltimore." Chicken and waffles are a good place to start, but the menu doesn't stop there.

Anne Arundel Annapolis: : Celebrate an old-fashioned Fourth of July in Annapolis. The parade starts at 6:30 p.m. today at Amos Garrett Boulevard and proceeds downtown. A concert by the U.S. Naval Academy Band follows at 8 p.m., concluding with a 9:15 p.m. fireworks display. The concert is at Susan Campbell Park, City Dock, 160 Duke of Gloucester St. Free. Go to hometownannapolis.com Arundel Mills: : Get all decked out in your best Uncle Sam gear for the Arundel Mills July 4th Parade. There will be prizes for best red-white-and-blue costume.

Anne Arundel County Annapolis: : Celebrate an old-fashioned Fourth of July in Annapolis. The parade starts at 6:30 p.m. Saturday at Amos Garrett Boulevard and proceeds downtown. A concert by the U.S. Naval Academy Band follows at 8 p.m., concluding with a 9:15 p.m. fireworks display. The concert is at Susan Campbell Park, City Dock, 160 Duke of Gloucester St. Free. Go to hometownannapolis.com. Arundel Mills: : Get all decked out in your best Uncle Sam gear for Saturday's Arundel Mills July Fourth Parade.

As spring approaches - it officially begins tomorrow - it's a good time to check on what's in season in the area's arts scene. The next few weeks bring such classics as an appearance by John Waters at the Maryland Film Festival and a performance of Mahler's Ninth Symphony by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. There's surprising fare, too, like an exhibit at the Contemporary Museum exploring culture, science and the environment (Reverse Ark: In the Wake), and a surreal comedy at Everyman Theatre (The Soul Collector)

This February, Baltimore and its surrounding areas will be buzzing with Black History Month excitement. These events offer a variety of celebrations and educational opportunities. From concerts and galleries to open forums, there are more ways than ever to enjoy the area's African-American heritage. Here's a sampling: Continuing 'Courage: The Vision to End Segregation, The Guts to Fight for It' : Exhibit tells the story of ordinary people - people outside the traditional power structure, without wealth and often with little classroom education - who led the fight to desegregate schools in the South.

On December 16, 2008, ; devoted wife of Shade Sutton. Friends may visit the family-owned MARCH FUNERAL HOME EAST 1101 E. North Avenue on Friday after 8:30 A.M. The family will receive friends at Holy Temple Holiness Church 2016 W. Pratt St. on Saturday at 9:30 A.M. Funeral services will follow at 10 A.M.

Venable LLP will leave its Charles Center offices of nearly four decades for a new home at the eastern end of the Inner Harbor, continuing a shift from downtown's traditional financial district to newer buildings along the city's waterfront. The 450-person law firm will move in the spring to 750 E. Pratt St., where it will occupy nearly half the 18-story tower. The 150,000 square feet it will occupy has been vacant since the building opened in 2002. Venable, which is expanding, has been seeking larger and more modern quarters for about a year, Mike Baader, partner-in-charge of Venable's Baltimore office, said yesterday.

Aon Corp. will keep its 180 Baltimore employees downtown in a deal to become the third anchor tenant in the Inner Harbor's newest office tower - the latest signal of an eastward expansion of the central business district. The huge Chicago-based insurance brokerage said yesterday that it has capped a yearlong search for new quarters with plans to move its Baltimore office next winter to 500 E. Pratt St. The 275,000-square-foot building was completed last fall. Aon, formerly Alexander & Alexander, has housed two subsidiaries, Aon Risk Services and Aon Consulting, in the Candler Building at 111 Market Place for the past 15 years.

A prominent Baltimore developer says the city's planned $100 million makeover of a 16-block section of Pratt Street is not feasible and would exacerbate existing traffic problems and oversaturate an already ailing downtown with retail space. David Cordish, developer of the Power Plant Live complex, called the plan to add up to 650,000 square feet of retail and commercial space "absurd." "One, that's almost three Harborplaces," he said. "They are having enough problems. Two, physically there is no room on the north side of Pratt Street for that much retail.

New shops and restaurants would rise along more than a dozen blocks of Baltimore's most heavily traveled downtown boulevard, Pratt Street, and the corridor itself would get a $100 million makeover in one of the city's most ambitious urban renewal initiatives since the redevelopment of Charles Center and the Inner Harbor. Mayor Sheila Dixon is scheduled today to unveil final plans to revitalize a 16-block stretch of Pratt Street during the annual meeting of the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore, a civic organization that has led the drive to transform the corridor into a more inviting and pedestrian-friendly gateway to Baltimore's waterfront and business districts.