Real Estate Firm

Russell T. Baker Sr., founder of the Russell T. Baker & Co. real estate firm and an advocate of open housing laws, died Thursday of heart disease at Union Memorial Hospital. He was 85.Mr. Baker, who recently had moved into the Roland Park Place Retirement Community, had lived for more than three decades on Tunbridge Road in Homeland.Mr. Baker's career as a salesman had an inauspicious beginning. After earning a degree in German from Hobart College in 1935, Mr. Baker took a job as a salesman with Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. in New York City, where his boss told him he'd never become a successful salesman.

Regina Marie Wist, founder of a Southwest Baltimore real estate firm, died Sunday of cancer at the Chesapeake Hospice House in Linthicum. She was 95 and had lived at Charlestown Retirement Community.For 20 years, she ran Wist Realty and sold hundreds of houses in Arbutus, Irvington, Academy Heights and Catonsville. She retired in 1972.She began her real estate career in 1950 at Caton Realty, then went on her own as a broker with a basement office at Frederick Avenue and Woodington Road in Irvington.

A Chicago investment firm and a highly active real estate investment trust have emerged as the buyers of Highwoods Properties Inc.'s local portfolio, consisting of eight office buildings and more than 10 acres of land in Baltimore and Howard counties.Transwestern Investment Co. and Corporate Office Properties Trust combined will invest $82.2 million to acquire 612,000 square feet from Highwoods, a North Carolina-based REIT that is under pressure from Wall Street to dump assets and strengthen its balance sheet, sources said.

Casey & Associates Inc. yesterday named longtime Baltimore real estate executive Robert A. Manekin as its president, a move designed to strengthen the commercial real estate firm's management ranks and competitive position.The appointment of the former Manekin Corp. senior vice president and Julien J. Studley Inc. senior managing director coincides with efforts by several local firms to better compete at a time when large institutions such as pension funds own increasing amounts of real estate.

Mayor doesn't want help saving moneyYour April 18 lead editorial, ''Schmoke's tax bind,'' was right on the mark in suggesting that it's time for ''a top-to-bottom audit of city government by an outside panel."

Casey & Associates Inc., a leading Baltimore commercial real estate firm, has informed employees of a restructuring that will add management and result in an office consolidation.As part of the restructuring, over the next six months the real estate brokerage and property management firm intends to largely combine its Towson and downtown offices, which represent two of its three offices; create a five-member board of directors; retain a chief operating officer to manage daily operations, and establish an employee stock plan.

Standing on the 21st floor of the World Trade Center, Bernard and Harold Manekin marveled at the skyline they helped craft over the past five decades.Looking out past Harborplace, the two brothers who started a small real estate firm in the halcyon days of post-World War II saw much to reflect on. After all, there is little of downtown that does not bear a Manekin mark.From the 33-acre Charles Center that was the genesis of Baltimore's renaissance in the early 1960s to the Lord Baltimore Hotel to Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the Manekins -- 82-year-old Bernard and 79-year-old Harold -- have either developed, owned or influenced virtually every significant downtown building project of the past 50 years.

Fourteen months ago, the Manekin Corp. had won the battle but was losing the war with its General Physics Building in Columbia.Although the developer convinced General Physics Corp. to maintain its headquarters in a four-story project completed in 1987, keeping the nuclear and environmental engineering firm came at a price.In exchange for staying put, General Physics sliced its office need more than in half to help avert a corporate meltdown, suddenly leaving its landlord with 47,000 square feet of empty space.

William C. ClouspyFan company executiveWilliam C. Clouspy, a Baltimore native who headed a Memphis company that makes fans, died Monday after a heart attack at his home in Athens, Ga. He was 61.Mr. Clouspy, who maintained an apartment in Baltimore, had been a marketing executive for Black & Decker US Inc. He left the company in the mid-1970s to become president of a Connecticut manufacturing company.In 1982, he became president of the Hunter Fan Co. and retired in 1988 as chairman of the board of what was by then Hunter-Melnor Inc.He graduated from Patterson Park High School in 1952 , served in the Army in the mid-1950s, and graduated from the Johns Hopkins University in 1960.

Commercial leasing near Baltimore-Washington International Airport should start to pick up after hitting an all-time low, a commercial real estate firm reports.In a survey of the Baltimore area, CB Commercial Real Estate Group Inc. found that vacancies near BWI rose from 20.2 percent to 25.3 percent during the first half of the year.The high vacancy rate can be attributed, for the most part, to just one tenant, said Gary G. Dewey, senior vice president of the leasing and management company.

IRS, Treasury want tax on work cell phones repealed WASHINGTON -: The Obama administration asked Congress on Tuesday to repeal the tax on the personal use of company cell phones after sparking an outcry last week when it sought ideas for enforcing the law. The 1989 law says that personal use of a company cell phone should be taxed like other fringe benefits, such as a company car. The cell phone tax, however, can be a pain for workers who increasingly use...

David Oakley Vanderpoel Barroll, a retired former owner of an Eastern Shore real estate firm, died Tuesday in his sleep at Chester River Manor, a Chestertown assisted-living facility. He was 75. The native and lifelong resident of Chestertown was a 1950 graduate of St. Andrew's School in Middletown, Del. He attended Washington College and was a private in the Army from 1953 to 1955. He sold automobiles and farm equipment before becoming a real estate salesman in the late 1960s. In 1972, he established Cooper-Barroll Realty in Chestertown, of which he later became president.

A commercial real estate broker is taking over leasing duties for a large part of General Growth Properties' downtown Columbia office buildings. General Growth, which owns most of the Town Center offices and had been handling the leasing itself, said yesterday that NAI KLNB will focus its attention on seven buildings ringing the Mall in Columbia. The offices, which total about 1 million square feet, sit alongside Little Patuxent Parkway. General Growth says the vacancy rate of those buildings is about 15 percent, higher than its overall Columbia office portfolio.

SunTrust Bank, Maryland has appointed J. MacGregor Tisdale as senior vice president and commercial section manager in the regional bank's Baltimore commercial division. Butler Capital Corp. named Nicholas M. Schatz as manager of the Hunt Valley-based business lender's information technology unit. The Private Bank of America appointed John R. Walker as vice president and private client manager. Campbell & Co. selected Terri Becks as president and chief executive officer of the Towson-based alternative investment management firm.

Advertising Eisner Communications announced the appointments of Paige Fadden and Christopher Smith as account supervisors and Kerry Flanagan as an assistant account executive at the Baltimore-based agency. Banking and finance Brown Advisory appointed Paul Li and Maneesh Bajaj as analysts for the Baltimore-based regional investment firm. PSA Financial Services said Owen Ashbrook and Steven Sherman joined the Lutherville investment, insurance and financial services firm as account executives.

Columbia real estate firm Manekin names two to new positions Danielle Krantz has been named leasing and sales associate in the brokerage division of Columbia-based Manekin LLC. She represents tenants and landlords in leasing and sales of office and flex space in the Baltimore-Washington corridor. A Hamilton College graduate, she lived in Manhattan and handled marketing campaigns for Jean Paul Gaultier Fragrances. Liz Martin has been named information manager in the company's brokerage department, responsible for industry and company research, database management and marketing.

It doesn't matter how weak the office market is if you've got the right office. A new Class A building in Sparks sold for $181 a square foot this week, which brokers believe is a record price for a sizable property in Baltimore County - and unusually high for any suburban mid-rise. A key inducement: It's fully leased by one company for the next 10 years. Highland Partners LLC, which developed the 210,000- square-foot building on a 25-acre parcel, sold it for $38 million to the California commercial real estate investment firm BentleyForbes.

Judith Ann Phelps, an accountant for a real estate firm, died Thursday of cancer at her Westminster home. She was 56. Born Judith Ann Robbins in Baltimore, she was raised in Pimlico and was a 1965 Western High School graduate. She studied photography at the Maryland Institute College of Art and business management and accounting at the former Catonsville Community College. She worked for the state Health Department, a Catonsville photographic studio and was a self-employed caterer. She also worked as a food service worker at Deer Park Elementary School in Randallstown.

Herman L. Saunders Sr., a former barber and founder of a West Baltimore real estate firm, died of cancer Monday at Sinai Hospital. He was 70. Mr. Saunders was born and raised in Danville, Va., and moved to Baltimore after his 1952 graduation from high school. He worked as a barber in his cousin's West North Avenue shop, and later purchased the business, which he renamed Saunders House of Style. After earning his real estate and brokerage license, he established Herm Saunders Realty in the 1700 block of W. North Ave. in 1967, and operated it until his death.

William Henry Valentine III, founder of a West Baltimore real estate firm, died of heart failure Sunday at Union Memorial Hospital. He was 72. Mr. Valentine was born and raised on Etting Street in Baltimore. He was a 1949 graduate of Frederick Douglass High School and attended Morgan State University. He served in the Army from 1950 to 1953. After he was discharged from the service, Mr. Valentine worked as a union organizer and later established and operated the Arkamie Furniture Store on Pennsylvania Avenue, and the Valentine Home Improvement Co. He began working as a Realtor for the R. L. Johnson Realty Co. until founding Valentine & Associates Realty Co. in Northwest Baltimore.