"There is an incredible amount of activity going on in and around Baltimore," Christopher Buccini, one of the founding partners of the Wilmington, DE-based BPG Group, tells GlobeSt.com. "As a result we decided we needed someone on the ground."
The firm will be hiring 10 people initially to staff the office, he says, from senior management to property management and facilities. The Baltimore office will continue to focus on the asset group in which BPG is most active in Maryland now--hotel development--but also ratchet up investment in office and residential. The company divvies up its portfolio roughly as 40% hotel, 40% office and 20% residential and retail.
BPG will be housing its new staff in its most recent acquisition in the city: One North Charles St. Located Downtown, the 25-story, 290,619-sf building is a historic landmark that has had a history of long distance owners. BPG acquired the building from the Maryland-based companies Corinthian Realty Partners of Bethesda and Nellis Corp. of Rockville, for an undisclosed sum.
Buccini included One North Charles St. in his back-of-the-envelop calculations of the company's Baltimore portfolio, which takes up roughly 15% of the firm's total. The firm's other major Baltimore holdings included in his calculations are a Hilton Hotel BWI Airport, the Comfort Suites BWI Airport and the SpringHill Suites Baltimore BWI Airport.
Next week it will be breaking ground on a double-decker hotel in Hanover that will contain two hotels, as reported by GlobeSt.com. In September it plans to break ground on an aloft hotel.
Tenants in One North Charles St., which is 65% occupied, include Policy Studies, Trigen, Crown Central, Rosemore and Segal McCambridge. BPG has plans to make $10 million in improvements to the outside plaza area, the lobby, restrooms and other common areas, as well as upgrades to the building systems.
Renovations will begin within the next eight weeks, Buccini says. The firm's Baltimore group will occupy some 5,000 sf at first.
Buccini says One North Charles St. went on the market around the same time the firm was making hard plans to establish its own office here. "When the building went up for sale we immediately decided to take a hard run at it. While we do many different real estate development projects, this type of building is our niche: a class B building with great bones, great location but needing some capital improvement and expertise to renovate the systems and common areas to attract modern users."
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free ALM Digital Reader.
Once you are an ALM Digital Member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking commercial real estate news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical coverage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
*May exclude premium content© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
Erika Morphy
Erika Morphy has been writing about commercial real estate at GlobeSt.com for more than ten years, covering the capital markets, the Mid-Atlantic region and national topics. She's a nerd so favorite examples of the former include accounting standards, Basel III and what Congress is brewing.
