Restaurant Week in B-more

I have celebrated my birthday a grand total of 7 times now, and it isn’t because I am popular or that I have hit some huge milestone, it is simply due to the fact that everyone has crazy schedules in the summer. It is absolutely impossible to get a group together without loosing someone. So you can imagine my surprise when I made reservations for 15 at the Black Olive to celebrate restaurant week and almost everyone posted.

Our large group made us the perfect candidate for the back private room. The dim lighting was a tad romantic for this crowd, but the set-up of the room allowed for us all to chat with each other sans shouting. The portions were perfect and the rockfish was exceptional.

The meal gave us a chance to talk about work woes, long holidays, and most importantly weekends in Dewey. Witty banter, gluttony, and friendship—all for the low, low price of $30.08. God I love restaurant week.

-Faith

For more info visit www.baltimorerestaurantweek.com.

downtown rental market

the zenith - one of downtown's newest appartment buildings (photo by mitro hood)

The national housing slowdown hasn't hurt residential growth here in Downtown. We gained roughly 1,000 new residents last year, and we predict that number will grow this year.

Demand for apartments, in particular, is very strong. Many buildings are currently 100% leased, and new properties just hitting the market are leasing fast.

According to an article by Aaron Cahall in today's Baltimore Examiner, last month 148 rentals listed through a multiple listing service were leased - up 180% over June of 2007.

This makes sense. Typically, rentals increase when it's tough going in the "for sale" market. Like squeezing a balloon, if things tighten on one end, they'll expand on the other.

We anticipate demand to continue to be strong and are keeping our eye on the supply of apartments. With existing buildings close to full occupancy there should to be new properties hitting the market. But, as we document in our 2007 / 2008 State of Downtown Report, there isn't a lot of new housing construction in the pipeline right now.

-Mike Evitts

cities and food

photo of Red Maple taken by Mitro Hood

Good restaurants define great cities.

Think about it... A thriving food scene implies taste and sophistication, it underscores the creativity and entrepreneurialism of a community, and it provides places for people and ideas to come together, mingle, and regenerate.

Once known mostly for crabcakes, Baltimore's culinary traditions have been elevated dramatically in the past few years. The Charleston Group alone now has four of the top-rated establishments in the region. And they're keeping some good company.

Innovative restaurants and cafes are springing up all over, catering to all kinds of tastes and price points. So are farmers markets and organic co-ops, that bring the farm right to our tables.

We know from our market research that dining is, by far, the #1 reason people come to Baltimore from the surrounding counties. And it's one of the top things out of town visitors want to do when they're here.

People who haven't been Downtown in a generation are following their stomachs back to town. And, when they do, they're getting a taste of more than just great food. They're experiencing all the positive things that are happening in the city, first hand.

A college buddy of mine came back to town for a visit recently. He's lived in Manhattan, DC, and Boston, and he travels the world for work. But he was blown away by the way Baltimore has grown and become more energized and sophisticated.

Harbor East, where we dined, didn't even exist when he left for grad school.

This sort of thing is why we created the Chefs & Wine experience, and it's why we teamed up with the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association (BACVA) to start Baltimore Restaurant Week three years ago. Both events are a way to engage food lovers and encourage them to explore new restaurants and experience this rapidly-evolving city.

Restaurant Week is also a good way to support Baltimore restaurants during what's normally a slow time of year for them.

As the years have passed, the buzz has grown. This year, there are more than 100 restaurants participating in Summer Restaurant Week, and we've expanded the number of weekend days included in the promotion. And we started the first-ever Winter Restaurant Week this past January.

I hope everyone takes advantage of the promotion (you're only cheating yourself if you don't).

-Mike Evitts

what lurks beneath

traffic has calmed at Charles Street & Saratoga, although crews are still working to repair conduit damaged by Monday's underground fire

The Sun's Doug Donovan and Jessica Anderson had an interesting article today about the tangled web of public and private utilities underneath our streets.

Most of us are vaguely aware of power and sewer lines running below ground but have little idea just how complicated it all is. Donovan & Anderson write:

"Strung beneath the streets of Baltimore are 10 million linear feet of utility lines carrying electricity, cable, telephone, street light and fiber-optic service, city officials said. . . The lines are threaded through 3.7 million feet of conduits and accessible by 14,000 manholes, [Department of Transportation spokesperson David] Brown said.

"The department's conduit division manages the critical system with a $7.5 million budget, including about $3 million for improvements, $2.5 million for construction and maintenance and $475,000 for inspection and testing, budget documents show.Many private contractors, utility operations and telecommunication companies lease space in the conduit system from the city. The biggest tenants include BGE, Verizon and Comcast. Their lines are typically encased in cables that are strung through concrete holes that open into 6-by-12-foot access areas beneath manhole covers."

The Partnership's Streetscape initiative has brought us close to this complexity more than once. That program has invested more than $29 million over the past eight years to improve 88 block faces.

An important part of the program isn't just prettying things up at street level, with repaving, new sidewalks, better lighting, and landscaping. It's also about updating conduit and utilities that, as we've seen with Charles Street, can cause major problems when they fail.

The challenge to planning conduit improvements, or to fixing situations like the one on Charles Street, is that nobody really knows for sure what's going on down there. Maps and plans tend to be outdated or unreliable. Contractors for all the different entities with sub-grade utilities can sometimes move things around. Even with the use of ultrasonic equipment to try to map conduit, you may be surprised by what you find once you open up the street for improvements.

Which is why it can be difficult (and take longer than anyone expects) for necessary repairs to happen.

-Mike Evitts

absorption

Source: Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors

Going into 2008 the economic prognosticators were guarded about how the national economy would affect Downtown's.

We interviewed 68 regional business leaders for our recent State of Downtown Report, and nearly all of them felt that things wouldn't be great, economically-speaking, but that Downtown's strengths would keep it from struggling the way it did during the downturn in the early 1990s.

It's looking like they were right. A growing number of mid-year reports shows that Baltimore is doing well within the region, in spite of all the bad news about the national economy.

An office market analysis by Colliers Pinkard shows that, in Downtown and Howard County, absorption of new office space exceeded the pace of delivery.

And data compiled by the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors shows Baltimore City home prices haven't fallen the way they have in the surrounding counties (see chart above).

There's still a lot of uncertainty out there. But there's no denying that the city's economy is light years ahead of where it was even a decade ago.

-Mike Evitts

a city to watch

photo by Mitro Hood

Baltimore is one of "America's Best Cities for Design."

Almost.

According to a Baltimore Sun report by architecture critic Ed Gunts, we just missed being a top ten city the likes of San Francisco, Portland, New York, Chicago, and Boston - which all made the list.

Gunts writes that, "The independent survey by RMJM Hillier, a large architectural firm based in New York, ranks cities in terms of how well they are designed for "architecture, sustainability and transit."

Not having a top notch transit system was one of our weak points and, apparently we're behind the curve when it comes to adopting sustainable building design.

But, in naming Baltimore as a "city to watch," the report said that we, "have demonstrated a strong sense of design intelligence and are well positioned to become [a] future force on the national scene."

-Mike Evitts

blueprint for prosperity

The Brookings Institution has launched something it calls the Blueprint for American Prosperity, a policy initiative to improve the health of the country's metropolitan areas (which it defines as, "old and new suburbs, and even exurban and rural areas that, by virtue of their interwoven labor and housing markets, share common economic destinies").

According to Brookings, "Maryland has three of the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas —Baltimore, Washington, and Philadelphia — which alone account for 89 percent of the state’s population, 89 percent of the state’s jobs, and 90 percent of the state’s gross domestic product (GDP).

"All six of Maryland’s metros constitute 95 percent of the state’s population, 95 percent of the state’s jobs, and 94 percent of the state’s GDP."

Looking at those numbers helps you understand why Brookings has deemed metropolitan areas so important: they represent the bulk of this country's economic output. (It also makes me wonder why exactly the Philly district extends into Northern Maryland.)

So the institution is putting out whitepapers and advocating policy that will promote new investment, entrepreneurship, diversity, and sustainability.

-Mike