BPG Opens Third Local Office, To Hire 10

BALTIMORE-Inspired by its current $150-million locally sourced pipeline, not to mention the numerous potential opportunities the market offers, the Buccini/Pollin Group is setting up its third regional office here. The other two offices are in Conshohocken, PA and New York City.

“There is an incredible amount of activity going on in and around Baltimore,” Christopher Buccini, one of the founding partners of the Wilmington, DE-based BPG Group, tells GlobeSt.com. “As a result we decided we needed someone on the ground.”

The firm will be hiring 10 people initially to staff the office, he says, from senior management to property management and facilities. The Baltimore office will continue to focus on the asset group in which BPG is most active in Maryland now–hotel development–but also ratchet up investment in office and residential. The company divvies up its portfolio roughly as 40% hotel, 40% office and 20% residential and retail.

BPG will be housing its new staff in its most recent acquisition in the city: One North Charles St. Located Downtown, the 25-story, 290,619-sf building is a historic landmark that has had a history of long distance owners. BPG acquired the building from the Maryland-based companies Corinthian Realty Partners of Bethesda and Nellis Corp. of Rockville, for an undisclosed sum.

Buccini included One North Charles St. in his back-of-the-envelop calculations of the company’s Baltimore portfolio, which takes up roughly 15% of the firm’s total. The firm’s other major Baltimore holdings included in his calculations are a Hilton Hotel BWI Airport, the Comfort Suites BWI Airport and the SpringHill Suites Baltimore BWI Airport.

Next week it will be breaking ground on a double-decker hotel in Hanover that will contain two hotels, as reported by GlobeSt.com. In September it plans to break ground on an aloft hotel.

Tenants in One North Charles St., which is 65% occupied, include Policy Studies, Trigen, Crown Central, Rosemore and Segal McCambridge. BPG has plans to make $10 million in improvements to the outside plaza area, the lobby, restrooms and other common areas, as well as upgrades to the building systems.

Renovations will begin within the next eight weeks, Buccini says. The firm’s Baltimore group will occupy some 5,000 sf at first.

Buccini says One North Charles St. went on the market around the same time the firm was making hard plans to establish its own office here. “When the building went up for sale we immediately decided to take a hard run at it. While we do many different real estate development projects, this type of building is our niche: a class B building with great bones, great location but needing some capital improvement and expertise to renovate the systems and common areas to attract modern users.”