Airport-area office building to get extensive upgrades

Baltimore-based Chesapeake Real Estate Group LLC and Columbia-based Cicero Capital Partners LLC plan to invest $3.5 million in upgrades to an empty office building near BWI Marshall Airport in Anne Arundel County. Cicero bought the fourstory, 100,000-square-foot building at 1199 Winterson Road for $3.6 million at auction last September and brought in partners to the ownership group. It’s the second joint investment for the companies. The first, in Towson, was leased to Stanley Black & Decker earlier this year. Officials said there is “tremendous upside” to meaningful improvements such as this. Upgrades include facade updates, new window, renovation to common areas and bathrooms, a new lobby and fitness center, a conference room and a snack area. in the newspaper chain has fallen through. In April, Ferro struck the deal to sell his 25.6 percent stake in Tronc — which owns The Baltimore Sun, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers — for $208.6 million to McCormick Media. Ferro owned the shares personally and through his Merrick Media and Merrick Venture Management entities. That purchase agreement priced Ferro’s more than 9 million shares of Tronc at $23 each. Ferro had the option to terminate the deal and receive a $1million fee if it didn’t close by the May 15 or five days after federal antitrust regulators signed off on the transaction, whichever was later. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday, Ferro said he terminated the purchase agreement because of a “breach of its obligations” by McCormick Media. A source familiar with the proposed transaction said Tuesday that McCormick Media could not fully finance the transaction. McCormick Media is headed by Sargent McCormick, a distant relative of the family that built the Tribune media empire nearly a century ago. Last month, McCormick legally changed his last name from Collier. “Despite the challenges, we are continuing to work with partners on ways to complete the acquisition,” McCormick said in an emailed statement to the Tribune after the SEC filing. Shares of Tronc have been trading under $18 for nearly a month. Tronc spokeswoman Marisa Kollias said Tuesday that the agreement between Ferro and McCormick Media was a “private transaction not involving the company” and declined to comment further.