Same Mission; New Location.

The 2012 Labor of Love is scheduled for May 19-21 and will be held in Baltimore, Maryland.  This year’s event features championship golf, the Bricklayers’ Annual Softball Slam in Camden Yards at Oriole Park, Labor Night at the Orioles v. Red Sox and much more.

For more information, please go to the Building Trades Department website:  http://www.bctd.org/Field-Services/Labor-of-Love-2012.aspx

The 15th Annual B.U.I.L.D. Golf Tournament will be held on Thursday, May 10, 2012 at Piney Branch Golf and Country Club in Hampstead, MD.  B.U.I.L.D. is the Baltimore Building and Construction Trades Council PAC (Political Action Committee).

If you or your organization would like to take part in this worthwhile event, please call the Baltimore Building Trades office at 410-242-0522 for information.

Project led by bakery magnate, developer John Paterakis Sr.

Harbor Point, a development project led by bakery magnate and developer John Paterakis Sr., will be the site of the headquarters for the combined Constellation-Exelon company if the proposed merger is completed, the energy giants announced Wednesday.

The prospect of adding a new office tower to Baltimore‘s skyline excited city officials and the development community. But some were disappointed that the companies chose a site between Harbor East and Fells Point, rather than in the central business district. Others questioned whether the burgeoning waterfront area can handle all of the recent development.

J. Kirby Fowler, Downtown Partnership‘s president, called Exelon’s commitment to downtown “good news” but said he was disappointed in the site selection.

“There were many compelling and appealing sites that would have had the added benefit of reinforcing downtown, particularly the older core,” said Fowler. His group had been advocating for properties in the central business district, including the former McCormick and News American properties near the Inner Harbor.

Exelon, which has pledged to build a Baltimore headquarters as part of a $7.9 billion buyout of Constellation Energy Group, did not release details on the building’s design or the project’s scope. The development deal is contingent on Exelon and Harbor East Development Group LLC reaching an agreement on lease terms and other conditions. The property once held an AlliedSignal chemical plant.

The Constellation-Exelon merger must be cleared by regulators, including the Maryland Public Service Commission, which is expected to make a decision by Feb. 17.

“We are committed to Baltimore’s downtown and its business district, and we look forward to being a growing part of the Baltimore community as the overall vitality of the city’s downtown continues to flourish,” Exelon President and Chief Operating Officer Christopher M. Crane said in a statement.

For its new Baltimore headquarters, Exelon sought proximity to the waterfront, 300,000 to 370,000 square feet of rentable space, at least 7,000 square feet on a single floor for its trading operations, an office floor of about 30,000 square feet and occupancy in 2014. Exelon said it evaluated developers based on their experience and proposed “competitive and economic lease terms.”

“It was a challenging decision and one based on a variety of criteria,” Exelon spokeswoman Judith Rader said. “The Harbor [Point] site best met those criteria, and we think the development overall will be very good for Baltimore’s economy.”

Rader said Harbor Point also provided flexibility for future growth and the developer has experience on “delivering downtown Baltimore high-rise office buildings on schedule.” Harbor East Development also owns the Legg Mason Tower.

Exelon did not reveal all the sites that it considered, but developers, city leaders and others had identified a handful of locations that could accommodate a new office tower.

Besides Harbor Point, other sites that had been proposed to Exelon included the former McCormick site at Light and Conway streets; the old Southern Hotel site at 1 Light St., Baltimore City Community College‘s Bard Building at Lombard Street and Market Place; and the old News American property at 300 E. Pratt St.

Three of the sites — 1 Light St., the BCCC building and Harbor Point — are in state-approved city enterprise zones that offer tax breaks of varying levels over a 10-year period.

Advocates for the city’s core business district, including the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore, had been pushing Exelon to select a location to reinforce the area around Pratt and Light streets. They also feared that a new structure could hurt the city’s business center by creating an excess supply of office space.

Looking forward, Fowler said city officials and other stakeholders should evaluate how incentives are used to lure businesses downtown.

“We want to ensure that older parts of downtown get a shot at succeeding as much the new parts,” he said. “It’s paramount for us to engage the public and private sectors on how incentives are being used to move office tenants around the city.”

The owner of the old McCormick plant recently sought a property tax break from the city to allow it to compete with other developers for Exelon’s headquarters.

“I just wish we could have developed a comparison of sites that was apples-to-apples,” said Councilman William H. Cole IV, whose district includes downtown. The McCormick site was disadvantaged in the process by being outside long-established tax incentive zones, he said.

Plans for the old McCormick property, owned by Questar Properties, called for nearly 400,000 square feet of office space topped with about 350 apartments with street-level shops and an above-ground garage. Last week, the Baltimore Development Corp.‘s board of directors considered Questar’s request for a subsidy known as payment in lieu of taxes, or PILOT. BDC board members were prepared to make a recommendation to Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake after last week’s meeting, according to BDC President, M.J. “Jay” Brodie.

Now that the decision has been made, though, the city’s focus needs to be on “back-filling the vacancy created [at Constellation's current headquarters on East Pratt Street and next door at the Candler Building on Market Place] as quickly as humanly possible,” Cole said.

Several hundred thousand square feet of office space along Pratt Street may depress office lease prices uptown, said Terri Harrington, a commercial real estate broker with MacKenzie Commercial Real Estate Services in Baltimore. As more space comes on the market along Pratt Street and prices drop, she said, tenants north of Pratt who previously couldn’t afford prime space in the central business district will move, leaving less desirable spaces empty.

Recent moves into downtown — such as Transamerica Life Insurance Co. moving into Legg Mason’s former home at 100 Light St. — provide reason for optimism, said Ryan O’Doherty, spokesman for Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. Legg Mason moved its employees to a new structure in Harbor East in 2009.

“Recent history has proven beyond a doubt that it is possible to have growth in Harbor East and in a downtown building” that a company vacated, just as is happening with Constellation, he said. “Harbor East versus downtown doesn’t need to be an either/or situation.”

Rawlings-Blake also supports converting office buildings into residential space if there is an appetite for it, O’Doherty said. Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.‘s old building on East Lexington Street, for instance, is now a thriving apartment structure, he noted.

City Councilman James B. Kraft, whose district includes the Harbor Point development, said the area has been zoned for dense commercial development for more than a decade and can absorb the influx of human and vehicular traffic that will result from Exelon’s arrival. He expects temporary “growing pains” as Harbor East and Fells Point adapt to more bodies and cars, he said.

But Robert Manekin, managing director and principal at the commercial brokerage firm Colliers International in Baltimore, was more worried. “There is a very real concern in the marketplace that the density cannot be effectively addressed by the current streets and mass transit,” he said.

If the merger is completed, Exelon would maintain its headquarters in Chicago, but the Baltimore office would house its growing power-selling and renewable energy businesses. About 1,500 workers are now based at Constellation’s downtown headquarters.

The merger would lead to the elimination of about 600 positions across both companies, but the job reductions would be felt most in Baltimore, affecting Constellation’s legal, information technology, financial and other corporate departments, according to Exelon officials.

Exelon plans to move 200 to 250 jobs from its Pennsylvania energy-trading operations to Baltimore.

Exelon put out a request for proposals on a headquarters site in August and by late October had focused on proposals from nine developers. The company narrowed the field even further and received input from “key community stakeholders,” Exelon said.

Michael S. Beatty, president of Harbor East Development, said in a statement that Exelon wanted a “unique headquarters facility that would create a dynamic home for their growing Baltimore workforce.”

“This project will be a model catalyst for the development of a truly sustainable and vibrant neighborhood,” said Beatty, whose group also developed the Thames Street Wharf building anchored by Morgan Stanley. In addition to being involved in waterfront development, Paterakis heads the nearby H&S Bakery Inc.

Chromium chemical processing took place on the Harbor Point site for more than 100 years, according to the Maryland Department of the Environment, and required a decade of cleanup to make the acreage suitable for construction. The environmental remediation was completed in 1999, leaving behind a hydraulic barrier to prevent chromium from leaching into the harbor and a 5-foot-thick protective cap that stops the dangerous substance from being released on the surface of Harbor Point’s property.

Exelon said it has selected Washington D.C.-based SmithGroupJJR as the interior design architect; Baltimore-based RTKL as the mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineer, and GreenShape in Washington D.C. as the consultant for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.

hanah.cho@baltsun.com

Organized labor wants a guaranteed role in the offshore wind project Gov. Martin O’Malley is expected to propose — and the unions want it in writing.

The demand by construction unions is the latest hurdle for O’Malley’s effort to spur the creation of a new energy industry off Maryland’s Atlantic coast that would generate energy using enormous wind turbines anchored 10 miles off Ocean City.

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller said labor raised the issue of a “project labor agreement,” or PLA, this week during a meeting at which environmentalists advocating the project also participated. Miller said some wind-power advocates have concerns about the effect that such an agreement — which typically would ensure a role for unionized workers — would have on costs.

O’Malley, who failed to get a wind-power bill through the General Assembly last year, is expected to announce details of new legislation Monday.

But this time around, O’Malley may have to take into account labor’s demand to have its role guaranteed in the legislation. If not resolved, the issue could split the union-environmentalist coalition that backed the bill last year. Rod Easter, president of the Baltimore Building & Construction Trades Council, said the unions he represents want to make sure their Maryland members benefit from the jobs that could be created in construction and operation of any offshore wind farm.

“There’s got to be something written in the bill to include organized labor for us to totally commit to the project,” Easter said. “We cannot be standing on the curb watching people go to work who don’t live in Maryland.”

Easter said members of the council’s unions — including pipe fitters, carpenters, roofers, electricians and other construction trades — have had to travel far and wide to find scarce work in the past few years. He said that without a PLA, his concern is that workers in other states — just as desperate for work and just as willing to travel — could take most of the jobs on any Maryland wind project. He said a PLA would guarantee Maryland employment because local labor organizations, or national unions acting on their behalf, would be signatories to the pact.

Easter said that without a PLA, labor might not oppose the bill outright but would stand on the sidelines.

Project labor agreements generally guarantee a union role and spell out the terms and conditions of work on a project in return for a guarantee of no work interruptions. Easter said they also typically call for participation by minorities and women as well as training opportunities for apprentices.

Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, said his coalition of wind-power supporters has no objections in principle to PLAs. “Nobody is opposed to it. The question is how we do it,” he said.

Tidwell added that he shares Easter’s aim of bringing every possible job to Maryland, but he doesn’t know how a PLA would help. “I’d have to learn more about what the consequence are. I honestly don’t know,” he said. “The cost is clearly a concern to the lawmakers.”

One of those legislators is Sen. Thomas M. Middleton, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. The Charles County Democrat, whose panel will consider the bill, said his understanding is that nonunion contractors generally won’t bid on projects with PLAs.

“When you reduce competition, you probably increase the costs,” he said. Middleton added that as a purely parochial consideration, he has no union contracting companies in his district.

Yet Middleton is not ruling out a PLA requirement. He said that for certain projects, such as a nuclear power plant, a PLA may be justified because of the need to use the most highly skilled workers. Building offshore wind turbines may fall into the same category, he said.

“This is very skilled work here,” he said, adding that he could not make a decision until he has done more analysis.

But Senate Minority Leader E.J. Pipkin said a PLA would only make a bad idea worse.

“Offshore wind is the most expensive power you can have — period,” the Upper Shore Republican said. “A project labor agreement isn’t going to make that any cheaper.”

michael.dresser@baltsun.com

The Maryland State and Washington D.C. Building trades will be holding its Annual Legislative Reception on Wednesday, February 15th, 2012 at the Governor’s Calvert House, 58 State Circle in Annapolis, MD from 6:00p.m. to 8:30p.m.

The Baltimore Building and Construction Trades Council will be hosting a Holiday Party on Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 from 12p.m. until 4p.m. at the I.B.E.W. Local 24 Champagne Room located at 2701 West Patapsco Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21230.

If you would like to attend please call the Building Trades office at 410-242-0522.

Our view: Gov. Martin O’Malley addressed the most important issues posed by the Constellation-Exelon deal by focusing on the long-term impacts to BGE

Gov. Martin O’Malley may not have gotten Exelon to bump up the $100 rate credit it promised to Baltimore Gas and Electric customers as part of its proposed merger with Constellation Energy, but he secured concessions that will be far more valuable to Maryland ratepayers in the long run. The settlement the governor plans to announce Thursday includes a vastly greater commitment to renewable energy and other new power generation than Exelon had ever agreed to before. It contains millions to help improve energy efficiency and assist low-income customers who have trouble paying their bills. And it is likely to produce substantially more short-term and permanent jobs than the energy company’s initial proposal.

That’s all well and good, but the most important concessions the governor secured are subtler. The real risks posed by this merger were that it could lead to long-term increases in electricity rates that would dwarf any one-time rate credit, that it could expose BGE to greater risk, and that it would put ultimate control of BGE in an out-of-state corporation. The settlement the governor reached doesn’t eliminate those concerns, but it reduces them in ways that had not previously seemed possible.

Perhaps the single most important concession Exelon agreed to is a provision that under certain circumstances — such as the bankruptcy of Exelon or a major subsidiary, a credit downgrade or the failure to comply with Maryland Public Service Commission rules and orders — the PSC could initiate hearings to force the company to spin off BGE. That’s an idea the state Office of People’s Counsel had floated, and one that Exelon had seemed unlikely to accept. It provides Maryland with a failsafe option should its greatest fears about the merger come true.

A great risk of the merger was the degree to which it would concentrate market power in the hands of the new energy company. Within the section of the electric grid that services BGE customers, the new corporation would have controlled between a quarter and a third of the supply, giving it excessive power over the prices its own customers would be forced to pay. Exelon had already agreed to sell off three coal-fired plants, but now it is agreeing to conditions on the sale that will prevent them from going to some other major player in the region’s generation market. Exelon also agreed to build substantially more new generation in the immediate Baltimore area than it previously had, which should, in the long run, help lower prices.

Other elements of the governor’s settlement strengthen the financial firewalls between BGE and Exelon (and its risky energy-trading operations) and require that BGE’s board have members who are independent of Exelon and that a majority of the board live or work in the BGE service area. That all reduces the potential for problems posed by BGE becoming part of a much larger corporation, and with having its operations lumped in with Exelon’s two other regulated utilities.

In all, Exelon has agreed to build more than 10 times as much new generation as in its initial offer and to effectively double the amount of solar and onshore wind generation that Maryland has now. That pushes the state much further toward its renewable-energy goals and will help jump-start the green energy industry in the state. That will pay much greater long-term dividends in terms of public health than a one-time rate credit would.

We were strongly critical of the governor two years ago when he objected to a proposal by Electricité de France to buy half of Constellation’s nuclear business. At the time, it appeared that Mr. O’Malley, an old foe of Constellation and its CEO, Mayo A. Shattuck, was simply trying to extort as much as possible from a deal that had little direct impact on BGE and its customers. This time is different, and Mr. O’Malley’s efforts were right on target. This deal posed a substantial and ongoing risk to BGE and its customers, and as such, he was right to put his focus not on how much cash he could squeeze out of the company right now but on long-term issues of governance, market power and Maryland-based energy development. During his time as governor, Mr. O’Malley has secured hundreds of dollars in rate credits for BGE customers, but for most families, that money has come and gone without a second thought. The terms of this deal will benefit ratepayers every single month.

That’s not to say that an Exelon-Constellation merger is a great thing. It still takes a corporate headquarters out of Baltimore, and as EDF officials have pointed out, it greatly diminishes the chances for the construction of a new nuclear reactor at Calvert Cliffs and will almost certainly result in the loss of high-paying jobs here. But the criteria on which the Public Service Commission can judge this deal are narrow: Does it provide benefits for BGE customers, does it produce no harm for them, and is it in the public interest? With the terms Mr. O’Malley secured, the commission should be able to answer all three in the affirmative.

The Maryland State and Washington D.C. Building and Construction Trades Council will be holding its 3rd Annual Fall Conference on September 26th through September 30th.  This year’s conference will be held at the Holiday Inn Oceanfront in Ocean City, MD.  For more information, please contact the Baltimore Building Trades Council office at 410-242-0522.

Stephanie Rawlings-Blake glided to victory in the Democratic primary Tuesday, securing the nomination for a full four-year term in the office to which she ascended last year.

In her first campaign for Baltimore’s highest office, Rawlings-Blake turned aside spirited challenges from a state senator, a former city planner and the vice president of the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors, scoring more endorsements, raising more money and ultimately garnering more votes than the rest of the field combined.

Despite the competition, voter turnout was historically low. In a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than nine to one, the primary win all but assures Rawlings-Blake of victory in the general election.

“Thank you for your confidence and your vote to have me continue as your mayor during these times. It is a humbling experience,” Rawlings-Blake, 41, told supporters at a post-election celebration Tuesday night. “I will work every day to make your lives better, to make our city better and to earn your confidence.”

She wished her opponents well.

“This campaign was good for our city,” she told the crowd at Soundstage Baltimore, a downtown nightclub.” It was a good race about issues and that people deserve the best from their government.”

Gov. Martin O’Malley, a staunch ally, proclaimed Rawlings-Blake’s win “a tremendous victory for Baltimore.” Rep. Elijah E. Cummings spoke of his pride in Rawlings-Blake, who he said was “like a daughter.”

In the Republican primary, Alfred V. Griffin held a 22-vote lead over Vicki Ann Harding with 288 of 290 precincts having reported.

Rawlings-Blake was elevated to mayor in February 2010 after Sheila Dixon resigned in a plea deal to settle corruption charges. The fact that she wasn’t elected to the office inspired an unusually high number of serious challengers.

But Democrats said her calm demeanor in the face of crises — the pair of blizzards that greeted her arrival in office, followed by two years of budget shortfalls and, most recently, a hurricane and an earthquake — inspired their confidence.

“I want to give her a full term,” Angela Lyles, 46, said after voting in East Baltimore. “She needs to get a fair chance.”

Democratic voters also backed City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young, who was appointed by his colleagues after Rawlings-Blake became mayor. Young trounced a field that included Thomas Kiefaber, the former owner of theSenator Theater.

State Sen. Catherine Pugh, former city planning director Otis Rolley, former Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors vice president Joseph T. “Jody” Landers and Clerk of Court Frank M. Conaway Sr. sought to turn the mayoral primary into a referendum on Rawlings-Blake’s leadership.

The challengers tried to paint her as the latest representative of an establishment that had been unable to make the city safe, maintain the public schools or grow the economy. They said she was too tightly allied with the wealthy developers who backed her campaign, and lacked the political independence to reverse decades of decline.

But the field split the anti-incumbent vote, bolstering Rawlings-Blake.

“It sort of chops up the vote into little slivers of the pie,” said Lenneal Henderson, senior fellow in the William Donald Schaefer School of Public Affairs at the University of Baltimore.

Pugh, who came in second to Rawlings-Blake, struck a defiant tone before a crowd of about 200 supporters.

“We believe leadership needs to listen,” Pugh said. “We can do better, and the reality is we have to do better.”

Pugh told reporters her campaign “didn’t have enough time” to get out its message.

“We entered the race knowing we were climbing uphill,” she said.

Pugh, who began her political career representing West Baltimore on the council, positioned herself as a candidate who possessed a vision for the city that she said Rawlings-Blake lacked.

Mike Perkins, 61, who voted West Baltimore’s Hazelwood Elementary Middle School, said Pugh was the best alternative to Rawlings-Blake.

“We need some changes,” he said. “Stephanie Blake is a rubber stamp.”

Pugh retains her seat in the state Senate. She is due to head back to Annapolis next month for a special session on congressional redistricting.

Rolley, 37, finished third. During the campaign, he kept up a steady drumbeat of criticism of Rawlings-Blake, and rolled out position papers detailing wide-ranging reforms for city government.

He told supporters that he was disappointed with low turnout. He called the end of his campaign the “beginning of a campaign to take our city back.”

Dan Lozier, a 29-year-old software engineer in Canton, said he liked the plans Rolley presented on his website.

“He really detailed what he wanted to do,” Lozier said. He said Rolley’s website compared favorably to the mayor’s campaign material, which he found to be “about as generic as it gets.”

Landers made the city’s property tax rate a central issue in the campaign.

The Baltimore headquarters of Constellation Energy Group, which agreed to sell itself to Chicago-based Exelon Corp., will see the “most impactful” job cuts related to the $7.9 billion deal, according to a top Exelon executive.

In a meeting with Exelon executives on Aug. 10, Exelon president and chief operating officer Christopher Crane said an undetermined number of cuts will affect legal, information technology, financial and other corporate positions, according to documents filed Tuesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Corporate-related layoffs were expected because of consolidation and job redundancies under the deal, but Constellation and Exelon have said Baltimore is expected to have net positive jobs. That’s because Exelon will relocate some of its businesses — and its employees — to Baltimore.

“What we will look at is how do we get to our right numbers with everybody with a smile on their face,” said Crane in a transcript of the meeting. “It most likely won’t be possible in Baltimore and we’ve been very open with the folks there, but we also have people that are willing to move to Chicago, some folks in Chicago that raised their hand and said look, I’ll take a package and, so, we have to manage that properly ’cause you can’t do mass packages. But I think there’s a way we can do it where it’s less impactful.”