Rising from disaster and seizing new opportunities in Baltimore | STAFF COMMENTARY

For those who feel like Baltimore has endured more than its share of bad news in recent months — the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge providing the biggest example but hardly the only one — the Greater Baltimore Committee may have provided just the timely antidote you need. The business advocacy group recently compiled a “Baltimore Region Investment Scorecard” to survey for the first time how, through various measures, the Baltimore area is doing in terms of investment, job growth, deal-making and tax revenue. The skeptical among us might assume the scorecard would be harsh — perhaps on par with Maryland Comptroller Brooke Lierman’s statewide assessment in January that warned of “stagnant growth” with Maryland lagging behind the rising gross domestic production and employment numbers of neighboring Pennsylvania and Virginia. But if so, they would be badly mistaken.

The GBC scorecard is, in fact, refreshingly positive. Not as some fluffy public relations tool but in actual hard statistics. Take, for example, the category of “deals,” which are defined as public announcements of major projects. The Baltimore area saw 347 of them last year, which is more than the 304 of the year before and leaps and bounds ahead of the 127 to 190 of a decade or so ago. Last year’s deals include developer P. David Bramble’s $500-million proposed reimagining of Harborplace along with meal-kit maker Home Chef’s planned $307 million production facility in South Baltimore. Two of the top growth categories are life sciences and information technology, which dovetail nicely with the region’s future as a federally designated tech hub on artificial intelligence and biotechnology. Assets like Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland and the National Security Agency (not to mention Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin) sure come in handy.

Those deals amount to a combined $4.19 billion in 2023 alone and are expected to produce more than 22,000 jobs. And while that investment is spread all the way from Cecil to Howard and Anne Arundel counties, the strongest growth in major new projects was where? None other than right in Baltimore, where the number of deals doubled between 2022 and 2023. That sure doesn’t sound like a city that is a “disgusting rat and rodent-infested mess” as a certain former president infamously labeled it. In fact, that sounds like a city that deserves to be hopeful about its future.

Baltimore certainly has its challenges. We’d be the first to observe how decades of concentrated poverty, drug abuse, racial discrimination, job loss, crime and neglect have been working against a Charm City renaissance. But it’s often too easy to ignore this city’s assets — and demonstrable progress. Kudos to Mark Anthony Thomas, GBC’s CEO and president, for recognizing the need to pull out a yardstick, perhaps not only to help navigate how growth should be directed in the years ahead but to give us a more realistic view of ourselves right now. The interactive scorecard, first unveiled at an April 5 summit and modeled after similar efforts undertaken in Miami, Pittsburgh and Detroit, is now available online for all to see.

Meanwhile, for those on Capitol Hill who are moaning about how President Joe Biden’s call for the federal government to foot the bill to replace the Key Bridge is too great a burden for the country to bear, we would like to point out another useful statistic revealed by the scorecard: Business deals in the Baltimore region produced an estimated $309 million in tax revenue for Uncle Sam last year alone. So keeping those businesses functioning — making sure that people can get to work and goods and services can be shipped to and from the Helen Delich Bentley Port of Baltimore, for example — doesn’t sound like a handout so much as a wise investment in this nation’s future prosperity.

One final observation. Adding up the numbers on a regional basis is also a reminder that Baltimore isn’t just a city, it’s the center of a metropolitan area. And that metro area’s economy rises and falls not just on the basis of what takes place in any one subdivision but throughout Central Maryland. It shouldn’t take a container ship striking a critical piece of infrastructure to remind us that we are all interconnected. But perhaps it has provided a useful reminder that we can rise from disaster (and seize new opportunities) together. We will surely find out in the months ahead.

Baltimore Sun editorial writers offer opinions and analysis on news and issues relevant to readers. They operate separately from the newsroom.