Baltimore HUD Homes News

Vacancies soared 2 percent in downtown offices, and about 1,000 jobs were gone, the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore articulates in a report to be made public today. Job losses are estimated to persist rising this year as layoffs carry on in the financial services sector.

although even as 2009 guarantees to be a tougher year, the circumstances of Downtown Baltimore report makes the case that downtown is better situated today than it was in the early 1990s to ride out a recession and probably to fare better than some harder hit parts of the USA.

Particularly the extremely harsh times ... in the U.S., downtown Baltimore has held its own," said J. Kirby Fowler, president of the Downtown Partnership.Ranking of the top 25 largest cities, downtown Baltimore added 2,000 residents and 1,100 new housing units to rank seventh in inhabitants within a one mile radius. With nearly 40,000 inhabitants, Baltimore's center downtown population tops that of Boston, San Diego and Denver. In addition in the one mile radius of downtown, Baltimore soar to 11th place in median income, at $34,446, and climbed to eighth place in number of households with more than $75,000 in annual income, beating downtown neighborhood of San Diego, Denver and Dallas.

Last year, conclusion of the hotel, hospital and mixed use projects pressed investment for completed projects to $1.38 billion, up from $261 million in 2007, thanks to such undertakings as the $301 million Hilton Baltimore Convention Center hotel, a mix of projects in Harbor East and offices in the University of Maryland Bio Park.

This spring, $1.5 billion worth of projects are under construction or planed to be completed downtown, including Mercy Medical Center's $400 million Mary Catherine Bunting Center.

The tempo of projects is anticipated to slow in the second half of the year. No new housing projects are likely to start as the market struggles to soak up newly constructed homes and condos. In spite of everything, apartment buildings had average occupancy rates of more than 90 percent last year, and rents increased by an average 3 percent.

Rising layoffs in financial companies have had a wrinkle effect, hurting service and retail oriented businesses downtown, said Daraius Irani, director of applied economics for the RESI consulting arm of Towson University. The unemployment rate, which reached 6.9 percent in Maryland in March, will not likely begin to decrease until later in 2010, he said.

Richard Clinch, director of economic research for University of Baltimore's Jacob France Institute, also said he expects more challenges ahead this year.Nevertheless he and other economists say once a recovery start to take hold, likely in 2010, Baltimore will be balanced to move forward.

Baltimore will have a large base of new commercial space, office and retail, and more residential than really at any time in the last 15 years, Clinch said. Development are clearly going to be delayed somewhat ... although the forecast for the Baltimore and downtown area is quite good.