Developer Secures Loan for $60M Baltimore Project

BALTIMORE-Philadelphia-based ARCWheeler Development & Hospicomm have secured a $48-million construction loan from Capmark Financial Group to acquire and redevelop one of Baltimore’s historic office landmarks: the B&O Building on North Charles Street. Development–which is anticipated to cost between $55 million to slightly more than $60 million–is scheduled to begin in October.

Development plans call for the 220,500-sf, 13-story building to be transformed into a mixed-use office building with a 196-key boutique hotel and restaurant. Currently the class B office building is only half occupied, according to Andrew Benioff, managing partner at BlueStone Real Estate Capital, a real estate investment bank that secured the financing. “It is an underperforming building,” Benioff tells GlobeSt.com, “but absolutely beautiful.” Some of the current tenants are leaving, he says, and the remaining ones will be consolidated onto approximately three floors.

According to ARCWheeler’s website, the B&O project will be the first of the developer’s “10″ boutique hotel brand. Once completed, the building will consist of one-third office space and two-thirds hotel and restaurant. The exterior, which features granite from New Hampshire, bedford stone from Indiana, terra cotta tile trim, and seven different kinds of marble imported from six countries, will be preserved. The building was designed by architect James Gamble Rogers. In 2001 the City of Baltimore’s Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation and the Maryland Historical Trust designated it one the city’s ten most historically consequential buildings.