T. Rowe Price Renews Lease at 100 East Pratt Street, Keeps 1,300 Jobs in Downtown Baltimore

By Adrian Maties, Associate Editor

Good news for downtown Baltimore. After several months of uncertainty, T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. announced it has renewed its lease at 100 East Pratt Street and that it won’t be moving its headquarters to a different location. This means the company’s nearly 1,300 employees will be staying put.

T. Rowe Price Group has had its headquarters at 100 East Pratt Street since 1975. But this April, the company announced it was considering moving its operations to Owings Mills or to another Baltimore site such as Harbor Point. In the end, it decided to remain at its current location. In a news release, T. Rowe Price said the decision to stay put was based on several factors such as the building’s ability to continue meeting the company’s needs, the proximity to downtown amenities, traffic and commuting patterns of associates who work downtown, as well as the easy access to Penn Station and Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.

The company occupies 427,000 square feet at 100 East Pratt Street, including office space and the T. Rowe Price Investor Center on the northeast corner of Calvert and Lombard streets. The current lease with property owner Columbia Property Trust expires on June 30, 2017. The renewal means T. Rowe Price could remain in downtown Baltimore until 2027.

”Signing this letter of intent signals our ongoing commitment to downtown and the City of Baltimore, which has been our home since our founding in 1937,” said James A.C. Kennedy, chief executive officer and president of T. Rowe Price, in a press statement. “We’re proud of our city, and on behalf of our associates we’re pleased to be able to continue our presence here for years to come.”

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said, “We are thrilled that T. Rowe Price plans to keep its global headquarters in the City of Baltimore.” And, according to Kirby Fowler, president of the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore, “the commitment of T. Rowe Price to maintain their corporate headquarters in downtown Baltimore will have a ripple effect throughout our community. Downtown is home to the region’s best and brightest, and T. Rowe Price’s decision to remain here sends a powerful message in that regard and ensures that we can continue to prosper from the jobs they create and support.”

The renewal keeps 427,000 square feet of office space from being added to a market with an overall vacancy of 16.5 percent. According to CBRE, renewal activity increased in Q3 2013 in Baltimore’s CBD. The real estate services firm sees the Pratt Street Corridor as one of the more robust areas in downtown Baltimore for tenants who can’t relocate to Harbor East but want to remain in the city.