Sales of the luxury condos at the $220 million Ritz-Carlton Residences in Federal Hill have been steady this year, due, in part, to social media, word on the street and old-fashioned hustle, reports General Manager Joe Graziose.

“The market seems to be responding,” said Graziose, also a senior vice president with Long Island-based RXR Realty, owner of the property.

That wasn’t always the case. The development of 190 units struggled to attract buyers after it opened in 2007, and by August 2010, only 23 units had sold.

In response, Graziose has drastically cut the sales prices of the remaining units to jump start action. Pressure was also lifted about a year ago after a buy-back by RXR of a $176 million private refinancing loan made in 2010 to restructure the high debt load of the posh development.

Graziose, who lives at the Ritz-Carlton Residences with his family, said the waterfront condos located along Key Highway have been popular lately among young professionals with children.

“I’ve sold two more condos here where people buy two units and merge them together,” he said of two double-wides recently completed that total 4,100 and 3,800 square feet and sold for $2.5 million and $2.3 million, respectively.

“Our average age has gone down to 51, but folks in their late 30s and early 40s have caught on to it,” Graziose said. “What I’m finding is that people that work in the city want to be close enough to their businesses and be back home to be with their children.”

Graziose said the Ritz is readying a new short video and revamped website to help push sales this year. So far, he has sold 20 units this year, and has set a goal of selling 110 of the development’s 190 total units by December 31. Last year, he said the sales force closed on a total of 37 properties there.

“I’m very pleased with our progress,” Graziose, ever the optimist, said. “We’re really seeing a lot of traffic here — 65 percent of our buyers are from Baltimore, and others are from New York, Chicago and Texas. We have people looking who are relocating from Exelon, Johns Hopkins and we’ve had some inquiries from folks who work at Under Armour.”

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The 14-acre strip of land that some regard as the entry to Towson is under the microscope for possible redevelopment these days.

Called the “golden triangle,” this small collection of food spots, small businesses and the Towson American Legion Post No. 22 hall is located on the west side of York Road, just north of Burke Avenue. It is prime real estate in the county seat because of the central location.

And that’s where the scrutiny comes in.

DMS Development is pondering a gateway project there, which could include an open-air, California-style mixed-use development of residences, restaurants and retail mainly to attract Towson University students. The firm is seeking a new zoning classification at the site through the county’s comprehensive rezoning process, now underway and slated to wrap up in the early fall.

A few months ago, county’s planners recommended against the rezoning request, which was upheld by the Planning Board. Towson’s representative on the County Council, David Marks, said he will make his decision in June. But he said this week that fears the existing businesses there are endangered are unfounded.

“That’s not going to happen,” he said of the possibility of a total conversion of the site.

While some of the businesses have either sold or discussed selling with DMS, Marks said any further plans do not exist. He said the university once had a vision to build a ballroom at the site, connected to the Marriott next door, “but they have walked” away from that.

“Whatever happens there has to be special,” Marks said. “It’s in the heart of Towson and is a bridge in the university and the retail corridor. Right now, it’s underutilized, it is really key to revitalization.”

Marks said that within three years, the golden triangle site will undergo some change, at very least a gussy up of some of the vacant sites where an eyesore of a flat surface parking lot now sits.

In general, Towson’s development picture these days is a mixed bag.

Just north of the triangle sits a real estate version tale of two cities: The disastrous commercial portion of the Towson Commons still remains vacant while behind the old Hutzler’s building, The Cordish Cos. and Heritage Properties are finalizing plans for the 4.2-acre Towson Circle III project, expected to break ground this summer for a 16-screen Cinemark theater and new retail and restaurants.

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Chase Brexton Health Services will soon expand to a total of 13,394 square feet suburban of office space at the Columbia Medical Campus at 5500 Knoll North Dr. at the intersection of Routes 175 and 29.

The nonprofit now offers health services in an 8,121-square foot building, and the new lease signed will add 5,273 square feet to the Howard County facility.

“The Landlord’s ability to accommodate an expansion allows Chase Brexton to service more people in the Columbia area, many of whom do not have access to health care from other sources. With this expansion, Chase Brexton will now have the opportunity to provide additional services to include a pharmacy,” Dan Neumeister, Chase Brexton CEO, said in a statement.

CBRE’s Kim Penny and Laura Westervelt represented building owner, ACC Columbia Medical Campus L.P., and Terri Harrington, of Mackenzie Commercial Real Estate Services, represented Chase Brexton.

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The Baltimore Design School, currently a new city middle school with a focus on creative arts and fashion, will break ground Monday at 11 a.m. at 1500 Barclay St. in the city’s Station North Arts and Entertainment District.

The school will be located in the former Lebow Clothing Factory, which is about to undergo a $25 million renovation to convert it into a four-story, 120,000-square-foot space for classrooms, a gallery, computer labs, studios and fabrication suites. The building’s former loading dock will be converted into an outdoor fashion show space, and antique sewing machines found in the building will be part of a permanent display.

State Sen. Catherine Pugh, a local style icon, is the school’s founder and chair of the BDS Board of Directors. Fred Lazarus IV, president of the Maryland Institute College of Art, is the board’s vice chair.

The school, located in temporary quarters in the former Winston Middle School at The Alameda and Beaumont Avenue, is set to open in the new space in the fall of 2013.

Renovations are being funded and overseen by the BDS board, Baltimore City Public Schools and Seawall Development. Ziger/Snead Architects has designed the new space and Southway Builders Inc. is the general contractor.

BDS will add an eighth grade class this August and in the fall 2013, a ninth grade class.

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Craftsmen Developers will soon begin a new 108-unit townhouse community in Dundalk called the Townes at North Point.

The 10-acre project will be built at the site of the old North Point Boulevard Drive-in Theater on North Point Blvd. at the corner of Old Battle Grove Road. It is expected to open in late 2013.

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This week, Baltimore County welcomed a new nonprofit career development center in Woodlawn.

Herbert J. Hoelter, co-founder and CEO of the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives, officially opened the $3 million Career Development Center at 2621 Lord Baltimore Dr. in Woodlawn.

The 19,000-square-foot center will house a career development program including computer-assisted training, for approximately 250 intellectually disabled adults. The facility will employ case managers, employment specialists, psychological associates, job coaches, quality control and compliance officers and vocational instructors.

“Baltimore County is proud to be home to a program dedicated to providing life-changing career training to intellectually disabled individuals,” said Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz.

The county helped fund construction with a $2.7 million revenue bond. The National Center on Institutions and Alternatives is eligible for tax exempt federal bonds, and after the county authorizes the bond, it does not incur financial liability, officials said.

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This week, the state’s Department of Business and Economic Development launched an online database of available properties in the state.

Called Maryland Business Properties, the listing has more than 400 available commercial, retail or industrial properties and 1,400 buildings available for lease or purchase. It is updated weekly and allows searches by property type, site size, location and zoning and even transit rail options.

“Maryland Business Properties is the latest in a suite of free interactive tools that DBED introduced this year to give our citizens, businesses and economic development partners improved access to information and research, which helps to spur economic activity and create jobs,” DBED Secretary Christian S. Johansson said in a statement. “With this new system, businesses looking to locate to the State or expand to a new site have a simple one-stop search to find their ideal home in Maryland.”

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This week, a $5.9 million plan to replace the aging clubhouse at Hobbit’s Glen Golf Club in Columbia was approved by the board of the Columbia Association.

Local architecture and interior design firm Chambers developed the plan. Chambers specializes in private country, golf and city clubs designs.

Construction is expected to begin in 2013 and will take up to 11 months to complete. The project will also include construction of a “turn house” between the ninth and 10th holes complete with restrooms and a snack bar for golfers.

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TIDBITS: Shula’s Steak House has closed up grill at the Sheraton Baltimore City Center Hotel on Baltimore Street. As first reported this week in The Sun, the south Florida-based restaurant, owned by former Baltimore Colts coach Don Shula, has been replaced with a new venture called “The Restaurant” … On May 19, put on your dancing shoes and head to Towson Town Center where the mall and retailer H&M will sponsor Baby Loves Disco, a “family dance party phenomenon” for kids, parents and even grandparents. The free event begins with DJs spinning “G-rated dance tunes” at 1 p.m. in the Grand Court on level one… Transwestern has recently negotiated a 25,576-square-foot lease between Atapco Properties Inc. and GRAMACO Granite & Marble LLC at 8730 Greenwood Place in Savage. Transwestern’s Tom Gentner, Brian Watts and Mark Glagola represented the landlord, while Brian Siegel, also of Transwestern, represented the tenant … In last week’s blog, it was erroneously reported that Broad Street purchased two Fitness First health clubs in Gaithersburg and Frederick. It was Fitness First that purchased the properties and Broad Street was the broker.

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The historic art deco palace in north Baltimore known as the Senator Theatre has closed — for at least six months.

When it reopens around Christmas time, it will have three new theaters, a restored main auditorium complete with comfy chairs, and a tapas café with outdoor seating, all part of a $3 million facelift that is now underway.

The theater closed this week, showing its last film for the spring, “The Hunger Games,” on Thursday, said Kathleen Cusack Lyon, who co-owns the theater with her father, Buzz Cusack.

Lyon said the movie palace, built in the 1939 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, will be receiving long-awaited restorations and renovations as created by local design architect Alex Castro. When it reopens, after an expected six to nine-months of construction, it will have smaller theaters for classic films, one of which will seat 120 and two others seating 75 and 70 patrons each.

A new café, to be operated by the owners of Tapas Teatro next to The Charles Theatre in the Station North Arts District, also owned by Lyon and her father, will serve small plate foods and beer and wine in a space formerly used as “the popcorn room” and a now-closed dry cleaners, a Senator employee said. Outdoor seating will be available as the weather permits, Lyon said.

“As far as we’re concerned, it will be a one-of-a-kind theater, a deco theater built in the 1930s and still operating as a movie theater,” Lyon said. “What will make this truly original and a huge asset to the city is that it will be an art deco movie palace that is still playing movies, one of the only ones left in the country.”

Ticket prices will rise a dollar to $10, she added.

Lyon and Cusack received a $300,000 state sustainable communities tax credit from the Maryland Historical Trust this year for the renovations.

The Senator was sold to the city at auction in July 2009 for $810,000 after financial straits by its former owner.

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A lone insurance adjuster stood by what was left of a dilapidated row house in Johnston Square Thursday morning, taking photos for what certainly will be an upcoming claim.

The address in ruins was in the 800 block of E. Preston Street, just south of the historic Greenmount Cemetery. It was part of a $5.3 million rehab project of scattered vacant houses in the community, funded mostly with federal stimulus money. Mi Casa, a Washington-based nonprofit, is the developer of the project.

Thursday, what’s left of the house littered the site, with nail-studded beams loosely hanging in a perilous position from the top story, aimed at the sidewalk below.

What exactly happened, though, is in dispute.

Top city housing officials including Commissioner Paul T. Graziano said Wednesday they did not know of the collapse of the structure.

Graziano’s spokesperson, Cheron Porter, said in an emailed statement Thursday: “Mi Casa’s end of group structure at 818 E Preston completely collapsed. It is fenced off and the debris is contained on site. They had permits, and it seems they were onsite and handled the incident themselves. They have not taken any additional action (re: new permits to reconstruct). The go forward issues are not principally code enforcement ones. They will have to appropriately permit the rebuild, or the razing of the foundation.”

A neighbor across the street on Thursday described how the rowhouse “just collapsed” one day last month, sending a loud boom across the community.

The insurance adjuster, said he was informed that the house had collapsed on Jan. 20, “and thank God, no one was in it or near it.” It went unreported for a couple of weeks, he added.

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A $759,000 federal community development grant was given to officials of the city’s Howard Park community Monday to help build a new grocery store there.

The grant was made as part of a national Healthy Food Financing Initiative and is one of 12 nationally. The initiative aims to eliminate “food deserts” in low-income and rural communities by helping to construct supermarkets and small grocery stores that offer fresh, healthy foods.

The award was made as part of the city’s first Food Day. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and city agency heads, representatives of the United Way of Central Maryland, urban farmers and healthy food advocates gathered at City Hall to commemorate the event that is part of a national movement to raise awareness for improved food policies.

The Food Day focuses on six principles that include expanded access to food, reduction of  diet-related diseases, promotion of health by curbing junk-food marketing to kids and greater support for sustainable farming.

The Baltimore Food Policy Initiative has received national recognition for its efforts to improve access to healthy, affordable foods in food deserts – areas where residents lack access to healthy food options.

“For preventing heart disease, diabetes and other chronic conditions, having access to healthy foods is nearly, if not equally, important as having access to quality health care,” said Baltimore Commissioner of Health Dr. Oxiris Barbot.

The federal grant to help fund a new grocery in Howard Park will help with that, city officials said.

“These federal funds will not only help build a new grocery store, but also support the development of a commercial kitchen, and revitalize farmers markets in the area,” said Department of Planning Director Thomas J. Stosur. “This is a great example of how a grocery store can increase a community’s access to healthy foods and spur job creation.”

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A third-quarter survey by the University of Baltimore’s Jacob France Institute has found t Maryland’s economy has been “staggered” by the gridlock in federal spending and the European debt crisis.

The Maryland Business Climate Survey found that stands in marked contrast to its findings in the second quarter, when business owners in Maryland said they were optimistic about the state’s economy.

One bright spot is that overall sales growth continues to hold steady, according to the report, produced every quarter by the institute at UB’s Merrick School of Business.

“It appears that the general improvement in expectations for an economic recovery that we were seeing during the first half of the year have evaporated,” said Richard Clinch, director of economic research at the Jacob France Institute, in a statement.

“Across the board, all over the state, we’re finding that Maryland firms have ratcheted back their expectations for market expansion, with just over half expecting their market to expand in the coming year—that’s down from 63 percent in the first and second quarters,” Clinch said. “About 20 percent of the businesses in our survey are expecting declines, and that’s more than double the level of the previous two quarters.”

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This week, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake joined Department of Public Works Director Alfred H. Foxx for the re-opening of the Northwest Sanitation Yard – gussied up to become the new “Super Citizen Convenience Center.”

The center, at 2824 Sisson St., offers what city officials call “easier access for residents to dispose of trash and recycling” and will be a site to dump hazardous waste in a collection container. In the past, city residents had to dispose of trash or recycling at the open gate or toss it over the side of the fence there into a large container.

City officials lauded the new drop-off design, which features a raised, permanent platform for easy, drive-by trash and recycling dumps. Who said city government was out of touch?

“It is important that we are always looking for creative and innovative ideas that will make the services we provide more convenient for residents,” the mayor said in a statement. “We need to constantly evaluate ourselves so we can improve City services and grow our city.”

The site will also be the new home for the Bureau of Solid Waste’s entire Mechanical Street Sweeping Operation where 10 new street sweepers will be housed.

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All is right with the world again. The lunchroom at the Woman’s Industrial Exchange at 333 N. Charles Street in Mt. Vernon will soon reopen.

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A Chippwea Falls, Wis,. brewery will offer 30 draft beers as part of a new beer garden set to open this week at Power Plant Live! in the Inner Harbor.

Leinenkugel’s Beer Garden will be located in 2,500-square feet of restaurant space and 200 square feet of outdoor space at the ground level of the development owned by the Cordish Companies. Cordish has just completed a $10 million renovation of the historic former plant.

Next month, Leinenkugel’s will host a month-long Oktoberfest. The family-owned, fifth generation brewery is nearly 144 years old. The brews are among the favorites in the Midwest.

In addition to the draft beers, the garden will offer 30 different bottled beers. The garden has a “self serve” draft beer option, allowing customers to pick their favorite draft beers and even mix them.

As part of the renovations at Power Plant, the beer garden will have the outdoor garden with a fireplace, rose bushes, up-lit trees and communal seating. The main restaurant will have a retractable roof and sliding garage doors on three sides.

“We’re thrilled that Leinenkugel’s Beer Garden will open in Power Plant Live!” stated Jake Leinenkugel, president of the Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company. “It’s an honor that the premier beer garden in Baltimore will showcase our acclaimed collection of handcrafted beers to a new audience. Baltimore is truly a great beer town and we’re excited to be a part of it.”

Leinenkugel’s is hosting a month of Saturday-only Oktoberfest events beginning Sept. 17 that include live music, contests and food and drink specials. Some of the envents include a Miss Oktoberfest Contest, oompah band and dancers, fish fry, a homebrew competition and a chance to win a trip to the Leinenkugel’s Brewery in Chippewa Falls.

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And you thought fashion statements in Maryland were limited to Terps football.

Thursday night at Towson Town Center, a fall fashion show will take place at 7:30 in the mall’s Grand Court on Level 1 as part of Baltimore’s inaugural “Fashion’s Night Out” event.

The local mall, owned by General Growth Properties, joins in the international celebration of all things stylish and shoppers who spend $100 or more in the mall will receive a red patent leather clutch bag.

Other local shops will also be celebrating FNO.

The Baltimore Fashion Alliance will host 40 vendors who will display all things stylish at the Intercontinental Harbor Court Hotel Thursday evening. The event begins at 6 p.m. and is free to the public.

A disc jockey will pump up the energy of the night and a silent auction and raffle will be held along with workshops by local designers.

Fashion’s Night Out was started in 2009 in New York as a means to showcase fall fashion and boost consumer confidence amid the recession. It is sponsored in the U.S. by Vogue magazine, the Council of Fashion Designers of America and NYC & Company.

The event has grown in popularity to include 16 countries and more than 100 U.S. cities.

Mall officials say Towson Town Center will transform into a “shopper’s paradise.” Events at the mall begin at 5 p.m.

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Artie Donovan

Nearly two weeks shy of its grand opening on LaSalle Road in Towson, Gino’s Burgers & Chicken held a dress rehearsal Tuesday to the delight of dozens of former devotees of the legendary local chow.

Former Baltimore Colts great Artie Donovan held court at tables in the restaurant located near the intersection of LaSalle and Joppa roads.

Other happy guests sat before baskets of onion rings, fries, burgers and chicken. They were the invited guests of St. John Properties, manager of The Shops at Maryland Executive Park.

“Every day people come up and ask when we are going to open – some take their picture outside,” said Laura Miller, a co-owner of the Gino’s along with her husband, Jared, and partners Scott and Leslie Autry. “Today, we had to turn 50 people away who saw the crowd and thought we were having our grand opening.”

That is expected to take place on Aug. 19 or 20, Miller said.

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