Baltimore Co. firms acquired by two company execs

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The Baltimore County-based commercial real estate group CSG Partners and its asset management subsidiary, Property Management Associates, announced this week they had been acquired by two longtime company executives, Alan C. Grabush and Matthew W. Steinmeier.

The company, formerly Creaney & Smith Group, owns and manages several commercial office buildings, industrial projects and warehouses in the mid-Atlantic region.

Under terms of the deal, CSG co-founders C. Patrick Creaney and Craig M. Smith and executive R. Michael Creaney will back out of daily management duties, but continue with real estate transactions. The three will also “maintain their existing real estate holdings currently managed and operated by CSG/PMA,” according to Thursday’s announcement of the deal.

“This transition does not impact the day-to-day operations or overall philosophies of the company,” Grabush said in a statement. “Our focus remains intent on providing a first-class and well-maintained commercial real estate platform and maximizing yields for our partners. In addition, we will continue to seek opportunities to acquire strategically-positioned and high-quality commercial real estate projects contained within our geographic footprint.”

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Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz will travel to the White Marsh area Friday to assist Atlantic Design Inc. open its 42,000-square-foot building at the Baltimore Crossroads@95 office park.

The building is off Route 43, near Interstate 95, at 11505 Pocomoke Court. The company makes heavy equipment used to blast, remove and recycle construction-related grit. Its products have been used on landmarks such as the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge.

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As the housing market attempts a jump-start this spring, the real estate site, Homes.com, recently conducted a survey about the market.

More than 1,300 responses were tagged, the site reported this week, with more than 61 percent of those respondents identified as renters seeking to purchase a starter home. About 38 percent said they were attempting to sell their house.

The survey also found that about 34 percent of the respondents listed the reason that they were searching for a home was to upgrade from smaller living spaces. Many said they wanted to live closer to family and friends as reasons for moving as well. In the spirit of domestic harmony, nearly half of the respondents also said that spousal input was “an important influence in the home buying process.

“The economy and changes in the real estate market over the last few years have changed the way homebuyers think about and search for homes,” Brock MacLean, executive vice president of Homes.com, said in a statement. “Knowing their behaviors and search habits helps Homes.com better fulfill their needs and inform our dedicated network of realtors and agents, supplying the tools and technology they need to realize results.”

The Internet survey was issued in January and remained on the website for three weeks. Respondents also said they were wired digitally to the home search process and 20 percent said they used mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones to search for listings. About half of the respondents said they communicated with Realtors via email and 40 percent said they searched online listings daily.

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Mark your calendar for March 9 for a forum on redevelopment in East Baltimore including the controversial $1.8 billion project by East Baltimore Development Inc. on 88 acres of land in Middle East.

The event begins a 9 a.m. at Soujourner-Douglass College at 200 N. Central Ave. Panelists include Gus Newport, a community leader from Boston who has been a vocal advocate at the Dudley Street Project there, Rhonda Y. Williams, a scholar at Case Western Reserve University and author of “The Politics of Public Housing: Black Women’s Struggles against Urban Inequality” and North Carolina community organizer Jesse Wimberly.

Marisela B. Gomez, author of “Race, Class, Power and Organizing in East Baltimore: Rebuilding Abandoned Communities in America,” set to be released this month, will also speak. Gomez was a founding member of SMEAC, the Save Middle East Action Committee, which was formed about 10 years ago to help secure community participation and fair housing and relocation compensation from EBDI as the massive redevelopment was beginning.

The project today remains stalled in housing and local jobs. A new name “Eager Park” is being displayed for the area by Forest City-New East Baltimore Partnership, the master developer hired by EBDI, even though Scott Levitan, senior vice president for Forest City, told city planning officials last month that the community would always be known as Middle East.

Baltimore’s Board of Estimates voted Wednesday to approve $2.5 million in community development block grant funds for EBDI to be used to demolish vacant and abandoned housing at the site. First reported by the Baltimore Brew, those funds will be matched by a $2.5 million state grant, also for demolition at EBDI. The federal CDBG funds will be administered through the city’s Department of Housing and Community Development.

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TIDBITS: A recent project by Baltimore’s Hord Coplan Macht will soon be included in an innovative museum exhibition dedicated to greening American school buildings. The exhibit will focus on a project HCM planned for the Barrie School, a private college prep institution in Silver Spring, which hired the firm to build a learning studio and research learning lab, two new structures that total 5,800 square feet…A community meeting will be held March 7 by Reisterstown Main Street to focus on new economic development plans for the historic district. The meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. at the Trinity Lutheran Church’s Life Center, located at 109 Main St…Head to the new shop and plant for Wockenfuss Candies at 6831 Harford Road on March 1 at 9 a.m. for a free factory tour, complete with sweet samples…Floral Express Inc. recently opened a 2,700-square-foot distribution shop at 28 Alco Place in Baltimore. The deal was inked by the team of Jamie Campbell, Liz Tarran-Jones, Vince Bagli and Steve Shaw of Merritt Properties…Clifton Parker III was recently hired as a residential sales associate by Champion Realty in the company’s Annapolis office…City housing officials will host a free workshop on “how to purchase city-owned property” on March 13 beginning at 6 p.m. as part of an ongoing Baltimore Build Workshop Series. The event will be held at the Wheeler Auditorium of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, 400 Cathedral St. Register for the event at 410-396-4111.