501 N. Calvert St.
300 E. Cromwell St.
200 St. Paul Place.
And soon, the 500 block of S. Exeter St.
After relocating from Baltimore Peninsula to St. Paul Place in 2023, Baltimore Sun Media’s newsroom is on the move again, this time to Little Italy.
Reporters and editors were told recently that the media company’s new owners are planning to move its editorial offices, the heart of its newsgathering operation, to the Bagby Building at 509 S. Exeter St.
The company’s business and advertising offices will remain in the St. Paul Plaza office building at 200 St. Paul Place for now but will eventually follow as part of a phased-in move over the next year.
This is the fourth move for the newsroom employees in the past seven years and the first time any part of the Sun’s operations have been targeted for relocation since the company was acquired in January by David Smith, the executive chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group, and Armstrong Williams.
The Sun was founded in 1837, and its newsroom was located at 501 N. Calvert St. from 1950 to 2018. In 2018 the newsroom moved to Sun Park at 300 E. Cromwell St., where the Sun’s printing plant was located, and then to St. Paul Place five years later. Before moving to Calvert Street, the Sun’s headquarters were in the cast iron Sun Building at the southwest corner of Baltimore and Charles streets.
The newsroom contains offices for the reporters, columnists, editors, photographers and others who work on the editorial side of The Baltimore Sun and several community newspapers.
The four-story, 93,000-square-foot Bagby Building is part of the real estate portfolio controlled by WorkShop Development, a company headed by Doug Schmidt, Neil Tucker and Richard Manekin. It was constructed in 1902 as home for The Bagby Furniture Co., which was founded in 1879 and closed in 1990.
The building was repurposed for office use more than 20 years ago by Struever Bros., Eccles and Rouse, which sold the property in 2007. According to state land records, the official owner is Skylar Development LLC. Another address is 1010 Fleet St. WorkShop markets the building as being in Harbor East.
“Bagby is an icon in Harbor East, Baltimore City’s premier commercial district,” WorkShop says on its website. “The building is a hub for creative businesses, home to leading design, technology and medical companies.”
Also part of the Bagby property is the “Atlas Quarter,” which includes four restaurants operated by the Atlas Restaurant Group. The restaurant group is headed by CEO Alex Smith, the nephew of Sun owner David Smith. The restaurants that make up the “Atlas Quarter” include Tagliata, Italian Disco, The Elk Room and Monarque. Monarque and Tagliata are located in a low-rise annex that is separated from the main building by a courtyard with an entrance on the Fleet Street side of the property. It was originally a place to store and dry wood that the Bagby company used to make furniture. WorkShop converted it for the restaurants, along with reconfiguring the courtyard for dining and opening up the brick facades of the main building to create storefronts for other commercial tenants, including branches of PNC Bank and Verizon.
Some space in the Bagby building became available after the Atlas Restaurant Group decided to move its corporate headquarters by the end of 2024 from there to the E. J. Codd building at 700 S. Caroline St., but Baltimore Sun Media’s newsroom is not occupying Atlas Restaurant Group’s space. It will be on the third floor of the Bagby Building.
After negotiating a lease to move its offices from Baltimore Peninsula to St. Paul Place, the Sun published an article noting that moving downtown would put reporters within walking distance of City Hall, courthouses, police headquarters and major businesses.
“We are thrilled to be back in the heart of the Central Business District in a space that is well suited to our needs,” Publisher Trif Alatzas said in a statement.
The move to Little Italy means the Sun’s newsroom won’t be as close to the Mayor’s Office and other city agencies. But it does fit in with a trend that has seen other organizations shift employees eastward from downtown, including Constellation, Allianz Trade, Bank of America, Gordon Feinblatt and, soon, T. Rowe Price.
The newsroom move is expected to start next month.
