Port Covington Restarts
On Tuesday, August 18th, the Baltimore City Law Department and Minority & Women Business Opportunity Office (MWBOO) held a virtual outreach event. Tamara Brown, Chief of MWBOO served as the outreach facilitator and arranged for all participants to be present, to discuss their mbe/wbe needs as this project re-starts after shutting down in March due to COVID-19.
Port Covington is located on the western shore of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, it is a massive real estate development project consisting of 260 acres of prior industrial and deep-water ports space from Baltimore’s manufacturing and seaport/shipping past.
The project received north of $600 million in Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) from the City of Baltimore which marks the largest subsidy ever approved by the Mayor and Baltimore City Council. Consequently, the City placed minority and women business goals of up to 37% on all spend, local hiring and mentor/protégé relationships between primes and city certified mbe/wbe firms. One should understand that only Baltimore City certified firms will get credit for spend as an mbe/wbe.
“The event was remarkable and provided much needed information that connected our local MBEs and WBEs with Weller Development and the General Contractors. We are forming a great network that will ensure that the goals will be exceeded on the Port Covington Project” said Tamara Brown.
“Tamara Brown gets the credit for staging this enabling event and bringing in all the prime construction managers along with Weller Development, the developer for the project. This project, which is strongly supported by equity partners, Goldman Sachs, and Under Amour’s founder Kevin Plank, will continue over the next 10 to 20 years, however the initial buildings, street and hardscape are going on now. It looks like all the construction managers Whiting-Turner Contracting Company, Clark Construction, Bozzuto Construction and CBG Building Company, need more Baltimore City certified MBEs and WBEs to meet their goals and the city will not accept waivers unless the construction managers prove that the capacity is not there. For MBE/WBE firms desiring to work on this project that are not Baltimore City certified, please contact me, Wayne Frazier at wrf@mwmca.org or 443-759-8580, said Wayne R. Frazier, Sr., president of Md. Washington Minority Companies Association (MWMCA).
View PowerPoint presentation from virtual outreach
View contacts from construction management firms: The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company; Clark Construction; CBG Building Company; The Bozzuto Group
