Dive Brief:
- Apparel and sportswear company Under Armour announced it will build a new headquarters on a 50-acre Port Covington waterfront site in South Baltimore, according to the Baltimore Business Journal. The campus will include nearly four million square feet of office, manufacturing and athletic space.
- The two-decade project will also feature public access to the waterfront, a field house with indoor practice fields, a basketball court, 100,000 square feet of manufacturing space, a 7,000-seat stadium and almost three million square feet of office space.
- The office space could be spread throughout as many as three towers, the first of which the company plans to build by 2021. See renderings of the new campus here.
Dive Insight:
The Under Armour campus is part of a larger Sagamore Development mixed-use project to develop 266 waterfront acres. Under Armour officials said the entire Sagamore project will cost billions and that Sagamore, which is owned by Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank, will most likely seek tax breaks and incentives from Baltimore as well as financing.
"We see this as a major game-changer for the city. We believe that our investment is also going to attract other investment, because when people see the commitment that Under Armour has to the city and how we're going to grow here, other people are going to want to be part of that," Under Armour Vice President for Corporate Real Estate Neil Jurgens told The Baltimore Sun.
Under Armour has approximately 1,900 workers at its current headquarters in Baltimore, but the new headquarters, once complete, will be home to more than 10,000.
Jurgens said Under Armour and Sagamore Development also plan to work with the city to determine transportation options for employees and visitors to avoid traffic congestion. This includes a possible extension of the nearby light rail line, bus service and water taxi service.
The Sun noted that Under Armour's reveal Thursday likely marks the start of "years of wrangling over public financing, infrastructure and environmental cleanup" of the development site.
