Real Estate

The defunct Baltimore International College is selling its former headquarters at 17 Commerce Street, according to a statement Monday from the real estate firm handling the sale. Real estate leasing and sales firm Cushman & Wakefield is marketing the building “as a redevelopment opportunity for multifamily, hotel, office or retail use,” the statement said. “Originally home to the Baltimore Grain Trading Exchange, the 80,555 square foot Commerce Exchange Building was built in 1906 after the Great Baltimore Fire and completely renovated in 1985,” Cushman & Wakefield said.

Suzanna "Sue" Miller, whom friends called "Mrs. Baltimore" for her role in selling homes to those moving here, died of pneumonia Saturday at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. The Pikesville resident was 80. "She was an irreplaceable person," said Lynne R. Miller, who with her husband, Dr. Edward D. Miller, former Johns Hopkins Medicine chief executive officer, was a close friend. "She brought together so many people. She was such an ambassador for Baltimore, we called her and her husband Mr. and Mrs. Baltimore.

Last month, global law firm DLA Piper announced that partner Guy E. Flynn would become the chair of the firm's Maryland real estate practice. Beginning next year he'll also be named partner-in-charge of the firm's downtown office (DLA Piper also has a Baltimore-area office in Mount Washington). Flynn has been with DLA Piper for his entire career and is taking the helm of the real estate group from John P. "Jack" Machen, who recently started as special chief solicitor in the Baltimore City Law Department.

Adam D. Cockey Jr., a leader in the Baltimore-area real estate industry who had headed a Roland Park brokerage, died Oct. 30 at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson of complications from a fall he suffered last month while on vacation in Phoenix, Ariz. He was 71 and had homes in Cockeysviile and St. Michaels. Born in Timonium, he was a member of the family that lent its name to Cockeysville. He attended Lutherville Elementary School. He was a 1959 graduate of Towson High School, where he was class president.

Corporate Office Properties Trust, the Columbia-based commercial real estate development and investment firm, lost $20.8 million during the third quarter of the year, though the cash it earned from operations was well above the amount it made during the same three-month period last year, the company announced Thursday. On a per share basis, COPT lost 39 cents. But COPT's funds from operations, often used by real estate investment firms to show their health, was $48.9 million during the quarter -- an increase of 15.5 percent over the amount earned during the third quarter of 2011, according to a statement from the company.

The Baltimore waterfront's iconic Harborplace is being sold to a New York real estate investment firm that has a reputation for purchasing distinctive retail centers, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced Tuesday. Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp., which is collecting unique commercial landmarks like Faneuil Hall Marketplace in Boston, Union Station in Washington and Rivercenter in San Antonio, purchased the Inner Harbor mall from General Growth Properties, Rawlings-Blake said in a statement.

The Federal Reserve announced Tuesday that Patapsco Bancorp of Dundalk has agreed to take steps to maintain the soundness of the company and its Patapsco Bank subsidiary The company and the bank must submit plans showing how they will sustain sufficient capital, improve the bank's earnings, strengthen board oversight of management and operations, and reduce problem assets and exposure to commercial real estate. The company also can't declare dividends or borrow any money without regulators' approval.

Singer Art Garfunkel, a real estate magnate and an investor are putting $2 million in gold bullion on the line to inspire researchers to cure blindness by 2020, establishing through Johns Hopkins Medicine one of the world's largest prizes for a scientific advancement. The men, one-time roommates at Columbia University, intend for the prize to trigger research into the variety of diseases that cause blindness — 80 percent of which are preventable — in 39 million people around the world.

Corporate Office Properties Trust, a real estate investment and development firm based in Columbia, sold more than 8.6 million new common stock shares during a public offering over the past week, the company announced Tuesday. The company's net proceeds from the sale, before deducting the offering's expenses, was about $204.9 million, according to a statement from the firm. The offering's underwriters purchased all 1.1 million shares available to them, said COPT, which owns about 230 office buildings, totaling 19.8 million square feet of leasable space.