Struever Bros

A large chunk of waterfront property in Port Covington is set to go on the auction block in June after its previous owner, Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse, defaulted on a multimillion-dollar mortgage. The now-defunct developer owed BB&T Bank more than $10.7 million for the roughly 10-acre parcel in South Baltimore off East Cromwell Street. A trustee-ordered sale is scheduled June 14. The foreclosure sale brings new hope to an area filled with weedy lots — an area where developers have struggled for decades to get a foothold.

A large chunk of waterfront property in Port Covington is set to go on the auction block in June after its previous owner, Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse, defaulted on a multimillion-dollar mortgage. The now-defunct developer owed BB&T Bank more than $10.7 million for the roughly 10-acre parcel in South Baltimore off East Cromwell Street. A trustee-ordered sale is scheduled June 14. The foreclosure sale brings new hope to an area filled with weedy lots — an area where developers have struggled for decades to get a foothold.

Ryland Group Inc. of Columbia and Baltimore-based developers Struever Bros., Eccles & Rouse will build 283 town houses for low-income residents in West Baltimore, sharing a $16.4 million contract from Enterprise Nehemiah Development Inc."This is for-sale housing," said Vaike Talts , a spokeswoman for Ryland, the nation's second-biggest homebuilder. And she said the builders aren't taking the job as a charity case to provide low- and moderate-income housing."It's a straight business deal," she said.

Mike Posko was building a house with Habitat for Humanity International — in Nepal — when the Baltimore-area affiliate emailed him late last year to ask him to come in for an interview. He got the job. Posko, who took over as Habitat for Humanity of the Chesapeake's chief executive in February, said he's passionate about the group's affordable-housing mission. The nonprofit builds new homes and rebuilds vacant ones in the Baltimore region with the help of volunteers, then sells them at no profit and with no-interest mortgages to workers with modest incomes.

A major Baltimore developer made a preliminary deal yesterday to buy the ailing Belvedere Square, news hailed by top city officials as a significant step forward in the shopping center's troubled history. Struever Bros., Eccles & Rouse Inc. announced yesterday that, with two business partners, it purchased an option to buy the nearly vacant Northeast Baltimore complex from James J. Ward III. A Struever Bros. official announced the deal last night at a City Council committee meeting at Govans Presbyterian Church.

Part of the Clipper Mill development in North Baltimore will go to a foreclosure auction later this month, including more than two dozen partially built upscale homes - the first setback for a project that has transformed long-vacant factories into a mix of shops, offices and homes. BB&T Bank has foreclosed on unfinished homes and lots in Overlook at Clipper Mill, planned as a community of contemporary two- and three-story houses, as well as on the cavernous Tractor Building, meant to become apartments, offices and parking.

It was a cocktail party in an industrial wasteland. Waiters poured champagne in a gutted factory building. Strings of white lights cascaded from steel I-beams. And couples danced on a platform built atop enormous soap manufacturing tanks. Almost 2,000 people crowded into a celebration last night in the former Procter & Gamble Co. soap manufacturing plant in Locust Point to see the factory before a Baltimore development company transforms it into a high-tech office complex.

After two years of preparation and delays, Struever Brothers Eccles and Rouse, one of Baltimore's most prolific remodelers of underused urban properties, is about to start work on another collection of old and abandoned buildings in a slumping city block. The block is in Wilmington, Del., part of a multiyear, $60 million plan to revive the oldest part of that city. The designs are nearing completion, and Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Minner is expected to sign today a bill to provide state tax credits for recycling the historic buildings, some of which date to the 1770s.

Several key parcels in Baltimore's Clipper Mill development were bought back at auction by the lender for $2.425 million Thursday in a foreclosure sale following the default on bank loans by the developer, Struever Bros., Eccles and Rouse. The auctioned properties included more than two dozen incomplete upscale homes in the 38-unit Overlook at Clipper Mill subdivision and the shell of the Tractor Building, a remnant of the old Clipper Mill Industrial Park. The sale was handled by Alex Cooper Auctioneers on behalf of BB&T Bank, the lender.

Several key parcels in Baltimore's Clipper Mill development were bought back at auction by the lender for $2.425 million Thursday in a foreclosure sale following the default on bank loans by the developer, Struever Bros., Eccles and Rouse. The auctioned properties included more than two dozen incomplete upscale homes in the 38-unit Overlook at Clipper Mill subdivision and the shell of the Tractor Building, a remnant of the old Clipper Mill Industrial Park. The sale was handled by Alex Cooper Auctioneers on behalf of BB&T Bank, the lender.

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.

A team that includes businessman C. William Struever and a nonprofit developer from East Baltimore has been selected to receive a $3 million state grant to help renovate a former printing plant, possibly for use as a "healthy foods" commissary for the city school system. Gov. Martin O'Malley has scheduled a Friday news conference to announce that the state is awarding the funds to convert the former A. Hoen Lithograph plant, an 85,000-square-foot facility at Chester and Biddle streets that has been vacant for decades, to a light industrial facility for one or more users.

Two years after C. William Struever's real estate empire collapsed and the once-ubiquitous developer dropped off Baltimore's radar, the urban visionary has reappeared as a managing director of a new company, working on the same kinds of projects that helped make his name. Struever is one of the founders of Cross Street Partners, a real estate venture made up of 28 employees who all once worked for Struever Bros., Eccles & Rouse, the company that changed Baltimore's landscape and that of other East Coast cities before coming apart in the throes of the recession, leaving a trail of lawsuits and unfinished developments.

A group of commercial property owners in downtown Baltimore filed suit Friday against two state agencies and others, alleging that public officials did not follow Maryland procurement laws and seeking to stop work on the $1.5 billion State Center redevelopment project. The Baltimore Circuit Court lawsuit contends that state officials never sought competitive bids from downtown property owners and others before deciding to lease office space for three public agencies in the redeveloped State Center.

In the final years of his life, before he was diagnosed with cancer, metal artisan and designer John Gutierrez would light a bonfire outside his Woodberry studio and use the heat and flames to lure friends and colleagues into conversations that often lasted into the night. After his death earlier this year, those who spent time around that fire are now raising funds to keep this tradition going. They plan to erect a 25-foot chimney atop the fire pit that Gutierrez had built, that will vent potentially dangerous embers from adjoining buildings within the Clipper Mill complex where Gutierrez had his metal fabrication works.

Child care service provider Bright Horizons plans to open a 20,000-square-foot child care center this fall at Tide Point in Locust Point. It will be the 12th facility in Maryland for the Massachusetts-based company and will serve the community-at-large rather than one specific employer, according to spokesperson Bridget Perry. Bright Horizons has negotiated a 10-year lease to occupy the waterfront space formerly occupied by the Board of Child Care in the Cascade Building at Tide Point, the old Procter & Gamble plant soap factory converted to offices by Struever Bros.

The Baltimore real estate developer credited with resuscitating the American Can Co. complex finalized yesterday the purchase of the derelict Procter & Gamble Co. plant in southern Baltimore, which city officials hope will serve as an anchor to revive economically struggling Locust Point.Struever Bros., Eccles & Rouse Inc.'s plan to convert the former soap-making complex, which has been vacant since September 1995, into $53 million worth of office and retail space could bring as many as 2,000 jobs to an area decimated by the closings of manufacturing plants.

The Baltimore development company that rehabilitated the dormant American Can Co. plant has turned its sights on renovating the abandoned Procter & Gamble Co. soap plant in Locust Point.Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse Inc.'s work on the Canton landmark resulted in significant retail space. It is studying converting the 26-acre waterfront site at 1422 Nicholson St. into primarily office space."In terms of the energy and the excitement level, we're thinking of it in terms of American Can, and in terms of the character we're hoping it will have -- but we're thinking at this point, and it's very early in the process -- that it will be just office space," said Bill Struever, the company's president.

Johns Hopkins plans to buy the former Zurich Insurance Co. property in North Baltimore and relocate up to 1,100 workers to two large office buildings - a move expected to help stabilize the area and boost neighboring businesses. The 11.4-acre property at Keswick Road and 40th Street would be acquired by a subsidiary jointly owned by the Johns Hopkins University and the Johns Hopkins Health System in East Baltimore, to consolidate workers in finance, data processing and other services.

Several key parcels in Baltimore's Clipper Mill development were bought back at auction by the lender for $2.425 million Thursday in a foreclosure sale following the default on bank loans by the developer, Struever Bros., Eccles and Rouse. The auctioned properties included more than two dozen incomplete upscale homes in the 38-unit Overlook at Clipper Mill subdivision and the shell of the Tractor Building, a remnant of the old Clipper Mill Industrial Park. The sale was handled by Alex Cooper Auctioneers on behalf of BB&T Bank, the lender.