T. Rowe Price breaks ground in Harbor Point
T. Rowe Price Group held a groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday morning at the site of its future 550,000-squarefoot headquarters in Harbor Point, where two sevenstory buildings connected by a glass atrium are expected to open in 2024.
The Baltimore-based global investment group has been in the city since Thomas Rowe Price Jr. started his business on Light Street in 1937 and has been headquartered at 100 E. Pratt St. since 1975, occupying nearly half of the prominent 28-story building. The company, which also has a corporate campus in Owings Mills, flirted with leaving the city in 2013.
Elected officials at Tuesday’s ceremony lauded the firm’s commitment to Baltimore.
“Words really can’t do justice to how grateful we are in Baltimore that T. Rowe Price decided to reaffirm its deep commitment to our great city,” Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said to dozens of attendees. “Today with this groundbreaking, we are making the statement that we are in this together and that their commitment advances our vision for Baltimore’s renaissance and that this can only be done in true partnership.”
The development also includes a 4.5-acre public waterfront park.
A T. Rowe Price spokesperson said 2,500 employees will work in the new headquarters once completed.
Amy Beall, who heads T. Rowe’s real estate and workplace services, said the new headquarters will have a timeless style, featuring stone and wood. Lots of glass will allow for views of the Inner Harbor and let in natural night, Beall said, noting that the company is excited about the move.
“The Harbor Point community is a vibrant, growing waterfront neighborhood,” Beall said. “It’s really that work-live-play model.”
Speaking at Tuesday’s event, T. Rowe CEO Rob Sharps echoed Beall.
“The decision to move to Harbor Point was grounded not only in a commitment to the city of Baltimore,” Sharps said, “but also in the well-being of our associates, the chance to custom design buildings to suit our needs, and the opportunity to be in this beautiful location, which we believe will help us attract and retain top talent.”
Located on the site of a former chromium plant between Harbor East and Fells Point, Harbor Point is a 27-acre waterfront campus that has been in development for about a decade.
The new headquarters are being developed by the
Beatty Development Group in partnership with Armada Hoffler Properties, which is also the project’s general contractor.
Beatty Development CEO Michael Beatty said he had tried — and failed — multiple times to persuade T. Rowe to move its headquarters to Harbor Point, at one point sending a model of the proposed headquarters in a gift box to T. Rowe executives.
In December 2020, T. Rowe signed a 15-year lease and development agreement with the Beatty Development. Terms of the deal were not disclosed at the time, and the total construction cost of the headquarters is not clear.
The new headquarters is part of the third phase of development at Harbor Point, which also includes a hotel, apartment building, and retail space on a nearby parcel as well as the 4.5-acre park.
Together, those developments represent a capital investment of nearly $500 million, Beatty said Tuesday. When that phase is finished, another parcel still remains to be developed at Harbor Point.
Harbor Point was the last undeveloped segment along the Inner Harbor in 2013 when the city approved $125 million in what’s known as tax increment financing or TIF bonds.