Under Armour expansion gets green light

Under Armour Inc. has won city approval for a significant expansion at its Locust Point headquarters expected to nearly double the company's local employment base.

Following a brief hearing Tuesday, the city's Board of Municipal and Zoning Appeals voted to support the fast-growing sports apparel firm's expansion onto a 7-acre property at 1450 Beason St., a property across the Key Highway extension from its Tide Point corporate offices.

Under Armour could be in the new space as early as April, provided Baltimore developer Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse is able to buy the land from Overflo Public Warehouse Inc. and complete about $14 million in renovations to get the property ready. With the expansion -- first reported by the Baltimore Business Journal Dec. 7 -- Under Armour expects to nearly double its local workforce over the next four years, growing from about 450 workers to 800.

Under Armour (NYSE: UA) already leases about 70,000 square feet from Struever Bros. at the developer's Tide Point business park in Locust Point. Struever Bros. has a contract to buy the property from Overflo; the developer needed permission from the city's zoning board to use some of the Overflo space for office and retail uses because the property is in an M-3, industrial zoning district.

Under Armour, which has agreed to lease the 140,000-square-foot Overflo space for a six-year term, is in the process of putting together plans for a more unified, larger corporate campus. The Overflo expansion is an interim step while Under Armour seeks to finalize those plans, Struever Bros. officials said.

In approving the use change, the zoning board also included a condition sought by the Locust Point Civic Association and voiced at a community meeting with Struever Bros. officials Dec. 5. The neighbors, concerned about whether the expansion will worsen traffic and parking issues in the neighborhood, are hoping Struever Bros. will build a new parking garage at Tide Point and make other traffic improvements to prevent Tide Point workers from using local roads to get to the business park.

During the Dec. 5 meeting, Struever Bros. declined to commit to building a garage within a specific time frame. As a concession to the neighbors, and at their request, Struever Bros. agreed to seek City Council legislation to change its master plan for Tide Point. Officially called a Planned Unit Development, or PUD, the master plan sets down certain criteria for what can be built on certain properties like the 15-acre Tide Point business park.

Any changes to the plan must be approved by the City Council, and the neighbors are hoping that during that process Struever Bros. will work with them to come up with plans for the parking garage. Struever Bros. has agreed to start that process by the City Council's Jan. 28 meeting, but needs a City Council member to officially introduce a PUD amendment.

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source: bizjournals.com