Baltimore County targets office park construction within year

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Nov 16, 2004 by Tim Lemke

Work on a 5.5-million square-foot office park, hailed by Baltimore County officials as the largest real estate project between Richmond and Philadelphia, could move to construction within a year, county officials and developers said yesterday.

Completion of at least part of the Maryland Route 43 extension in White Marsh will allow construction of some office space in the planned Baltimore Crossroads@95 complex by the end of next year.

Northern sections of the Route 43 extension, which will connect White Marsh to the waterfront areas of Eastern Baltimore County, could be done as early as next fall.

Plans for the 1,100-acre site call for nine sections of development. The largest piece will hold at least 2 million square feet of office, research and development and flex space, two hotels and two parcels of retail on 230 acres. The entire site is planned to hold as much as 2.5 million square feet of office, flex and research space, 2.5 million square feet of manufacturing space and 500,000 square feet of retail.

Officials said the development will attract between 10,000 and 15,000 new workers over the next decade, many in high-skill, high- paying positions. County Executive James T. Smith Jr. and other officials have marketed the site on several trips to high-tech areas including Boston and New York in the past year.

We're setting the bar high for the jobs, said David Iannucci, executive director of the Baltimore County Department of Economic Development. We believe these are jobs that will be part of a transformational economy. Our message is: Bring us your best.

County officials said about 40 percent of the Route 43 extension is completed, and the entire 3.8 mile stretch will be done by the end of 2006. The total cost of the extension is estimated to be $65 million, paid for almost entirely by Baltimore County and the state of Maryland, with property owner A.V. Williams Trust contributing $4.5 million.

It was viewed not just as a transportation artery, but as a gateway to economic development, Smith said.

Bethesda-based Somerset Construction Co. is heading the development team, which also includes MIE Properties of Catonsville and First Industrial Realty Trust of Chicago. MIE is expected to develop the office and flex portions of the development, while First Industrial will be in charge of the industrial properties.

Developers said they have not yet signed any tenants, but interest in the project has been high since the county revealed that the Route 43 extension would be done sooner than some expected. First Industrial said it was close to luring a pharmaceutical company to lease industrial and manufacturing space in the southeastern corner of the site.

MIE said most of the tenants on the site will be small, occupying between 3,000 and 5,000 square feet. But site plans allow for expansions; four four-story office buildings are expected to anchor the project's northern parcels.

Developers and the county have been debating the future of the A.V. Williams site for decades. Plans for an Asian-themed amusement park and NASCAR track were scrapped, and the county quashed a campaign to bring slots to the area. Discussion of an office and industrial complex on the site only heated up after the extension of Route 43 was endorsed in 2000 by C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, then the Baltimore County executive, and then-Gov. Parris N. Glendening.

I saw a comfortable piece of property to hunt and harvest lumber, but until that road was built there was no way anything was going on it, said Mark McConnell, regional manager for First Industrial Realty Trust.