Remington Gets Some Love from Metropolis Magazine

Miller's Court in Remington is a finalist for a 2015 Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence.  Metropolis Magazine is visiting each of the five finalists for the award. Their site visit article is an excellent profile of this great project built a few years ago. This is one of hose edge neighborhood redevelopments that are very encouraging. Seawall Development is moving ahead with other transformative projects in Remington. The most notable is the Remington Row, which recently signed a big lease with Johns Hopkins Physicians.
Remington is one of those neighborhood that has been on the edge of decline for a long time. Adjacent Charles Village and Hampden have stabilized and improved a lot over the past few decades. Visionaries like Seawall are what is needed to help improve these neighborhoods.

Baltimore City College Grad Population Grows at a Fast Clip

Research firm JLL reports that the number of Baltimore City residents with Bachelor degrees has jumped 21 percent in the past four years. This movement back to the urban core is a national phenomenon that, thankfully, Baltimore is a part of. From an article over at the BBJ....

But a new JLL report using recent data about Baltimore residents' college and graduate degrees shows the city is doing a better job of attracting people with a college education. Over the past four years, JLL's report said, educational attainment for a bachelor's degree or higher has grown 21.4 percent.

In 2013, nearly 63,000 city residents had bachelor's degrees compared with 54,200 in 2010. That's going to have a big effect on the price residents are willing to pay for housing, said Mark Levy, JLL's Baltimore market director. The boost will also bode well for development of higher-end housing downtown.

There has been a touch of angst lately over the possibility of a downtown apartment bubble. Hopefully this ongoing trend will fill these 5000 units in the works.. Having as increasing number of college graduates calling Baltimore city home also bodes well for the tax roles, as one would assue they will have higher incomes than the average resident....they can't all be baristas.

More Young Firms Moving into Charm City

 

Not that long ago a business story telling of a tech company relocating to North Avenue  would only be seen on April 1st. UnWired has already discussed the emergence of North Avenue and here is yet another good news story. The BBJ reports that gaming company Sparkypants signs 8,500-square-foot lease at the Centre Theatre on North Avenue. This is an in town relocation from Mt. Washington but it still is remarkable. Sparkypants will be located in the same renovated Centre Theater as Hopkinss and MICA's  new combine film program. Here's what a spokesman for the company had to say....

"We truly believe we're at the front-end of some pretty exciting stuff here — very much early adopters on the cool technology front here," Inscore said. "I started in the games industry as an intern in 1995, and having a strong intern program is really at the core of what we do to create local talent, and we are really hoping to develop a stronger internship program with Hopkins ... by being in this location."

The Baltimore region has had a long history of computer gaming companies located in the suburbs. It is cool to see one of these young spin off companies find a home in town.

Over at Technical.ly Baltimore the co-founders of insurance start-up Peach explain why they picked Baltimore for their headquarters.

1. Inspiration from icons and innovators
2. Close-knit community
3. Character and charm
4. Proximity to Washington, D. C.
5. Family

On the beer front Full Tilt Brewing is looking for their own brewery and tap room space in Baltimore City. They currently brew their tasty beers at Peabody Heights space in the city. From the BBJ article...

Fertig said Full Tilt is searching for a 20,000- to 25,000-square-foot warehouse with space for a tap room. He expects it to take about six months from the time Full Tilt signs a lease to get the new brewery up and running, but he hopes to have the tap room open earlier so customers can watch the brewhouse's construction.