Biz Roundup

By Laura Willoughby



BWI Corridor Rising

It seems the booming retail and office center that visionaries of the Arundel Mills mall promised are finally nearing fulfillment. With many of the shopping center pads around the mall filled, and more under construction, the massive mall that used to rise out of the seeming middle of nowhere in Hanover is quickly becoming a rather busy commerce and retail center.

Most recent to unveil its wares is Medieval Times, which will open next month to much fanfare. The long-awaited and much-touted dinner theater, which features real horse riding, knights and ladies, will throw open its doors in August. Despite performing little market analysis on its newest location (Medieval Times also boasts seven other theaters in such cities as Chicago, Dallas and Toronto), company officials expect a mad rush to the doors once they open.

And after much planning and a fast build-out, the Anne Arundel County Community College's Arundel Mills center will open in time for the start of fall classes in August. Seen as the college's best chance at encroaching on Howard County's educational offerings, the center is offering largely business-oriented credit and non-credit classes. That's in addition to several courses, some for master's level degrees, offered by the University of Maryland University College and the University of Baltimore.



Mega Merger

Two companies whose retail centers dot the Columbia and Glen Burnie areas are headed for a merger, one that will consume Maryland-based Mid-Atlantic Realty Trust into the very large New York-run Kimco Realty Corp. Mid-Atlantic Realty Trust and its 41 shopping centers scattered throughout the northeast will run as a subsidiary of Kimco, which, with its hundreds of properties throughout the nation, is something of a conglomerate.

No surprise, then, that the deal will run about $444 million. The merger should wrap up in September for the two publicly traded companies.

What really caught our eye about this deal, though, is the portfolio of rather familiar properties throughout Howard County and in Glen Burnie. And though it's Mid-Atlantic Realty Trust whose center of operations is in Maryland, in this case, Kimco already has the run on ownership.

Mid-Atlantic Realty Trust's mark is on the Enchanted Forest Shopping Center in Ellicott City and three prominent shopping centers along Ritchie Highway in Glen Burnie. But it's Kimco's 17 shopping centers in Maryland, most of them in Howard County, which really puts the scope on the deal: Columbia Crossing, Dobbin Center, Dorsey's Search, Kings Contrivance, Harper's Choice and Wilde Lake are just some of the retail plazas in Columbia the company owns.

No word on what effect, if any, tenants or employees will see from the merger.



On A Financial High

From delisting woes to listing highs, here's one piece of stock news that's actually good - so we just had to mention it. In a reversal of trends not seen since the late '90s and early 2000, one Columbia company actually moved up the stock trading ladder instead of down. In the past few years, more area companies once trading on the daily stock exchange have found themselves regulated down to the Over-the-Counter board, faced with more pink slips and much less trading visibility.

And then came the news that Essex Corporation moved last month from OTC trading to the tried-and-true American Stock Exchange - rather remarkable in itself since the company is high tech. Founded in 1969, the company provides fiber optic communications, signal processing and telecommunications systems for commercial, defense and intelligence customers.

The move paid off for the company, which saw its stock rise from $3.85 pre-American Stock Exchange to $5.50 in recent days. And the company's shares have had higher trading activity in recent weeks as well. Given that most delisted companies of late have been technology companies, that's one rather solid feat.



System Shut Down

Despite the success of so many technology companies targeting the defense and government markets in these times of high homeland defense funding, at least one local firm just couldn't seem to shake the cash flow blues.

Linthicum-based Systematic Solutions, which supplied IT services to federal agencies, filed for bankruptcy in May and has since closed down. Among its bigger deals was a $3 million contract to run information security education conferences for the Department of Defense.

The shut down is good news, though, for another BWI Corridor company: Nieto Engineering in Jessup will take over the company's contracts and employees.



Deals of Note

Here's one research field that's going to the fish: salmon, to be exact. Advanced BioNutrition, an R & D company that develops nutrition and disease fighting products for agriculture and aquaculture, won a $190,000 grant to develop a vaccine for anemic salmon.

The grant, from the Saltonstall-Kennedy Grant Program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service, will fund the development of an oral vaccine for anemia. Developments for the vaccine can then be applied to animals and humans.

Meanwhile, Martek Biosciences continues its inroads into supplying the baby formula market. The company's most recent announcement puts Martek on the international map: The Columbia company inked a licensing agreement with Nestec that puts Martek's oils in baby formulas across the world. Martek has developed oils that contain DHA and ARA, compounds found in breast milk.