altimore-based T. Rowe Price was founded in 1937. As the global investment management organization has grown through the decades, so has its footprint in the Baltimore area. The company launched operations in the northwest suburb of Owings Mills in 1990 and has steadily developed its largest campus. An expansion is now under way that will add about 400,000 sq. ft. (37,160 sq. m.) and 1,400 employees.
   The US$185-million expansion includes two new office buildings going up on a 38-acre (15.4-hectare) parcel bordering T. Rowe Price's current 34-acre (13.8 hectare), four-building campus, which has about 600,000 sq. ft. (55,740 sq. m.) of office space.
   T. Rowe Price currently employs 5,000 people globally, with about 4,000 located in Maryland. The expansion will make the company Baltimore County's largest employer. The company leases about 370,000 sq. ft. (34,370 sq. m.) in downtown Baltimore for its corporate headquarters and will maintain that facility. Current employment in the Owings Mills area, including a nearby technology center, is about 2,600. The planned hiring of 1,400 employees was Maryland's largest jobs promise in 2007. One building is scheduled to open during the third quarter of 2009, with the second opening during the fourth quarter of 2009.
   "The good news is that once you get people to come to Maryland, they typically do not want to leave," says Ken Moreland, T. Rowe Price's chief financial officer. "It's a good place to raise a family. For the most part, Maryland has moderate temperatures, its chock full of colleges and universities and it has good proximity to Washington, D.C. And in terms of culture, it's attractive to senior financial talent."
   The new hires, which will be added over a three-to-five-year period after the construction is completed in 2009, will include customer service and marketing personnel and staff for retirement plan services and investment operations, and IT professionals, Moreland says.    The new buildings will be designed according to the LEED Green Building Rating System. The company hired Hitt Contracting, which has a sustainable construction division, as general contractor.
   "We have always constructed all of our properties with energy efficiency and the environment in mind," Moreland says. "Given where the world is going, we wanted to ensure that we are meeting standards. At a minimum, we want to achieve Silver LEED certification on all new construction."
   T. Rowe Price worked with Baltimore County officials, who coordinated efforts with state agencies to obtain necessary permits in a timely fashion.
   "We have a tight timetable in that we are getting the buildings done in less than two years," Moreland says. "We haven't asked for any extraordinary incentives, just the normal incentives offered to employers. Most are related to hiring new employees and job training."
   Moreland says the new Owings Mills buildings should satisfy the company's space requirements for the foreseeable future.
   "The last time we built at Owings Mills, it took us seven years to fill up. It depends on the economy and our growth. It's fair to say that we anticipate the two buildings will meet our needs for three to five years following 2009."
   T. Rowe Price recently opened a new building in Colorado Springs, Colo., doubling the size of its campus there. The company also has an operations center in Tampa, Fla.    Maryland's financial services sector employed nearly 160,000 during 2006, according to the Maryland Dept. of Labor. The state garnered another major expansion in the industry in late 2007 with the announcement by Morgan Stanley that the investment firm will expand into Baltimore's Harbor Point waterfront project, adding up to 900 new jobs over the next decade. The expansion will add to the 450 employees at the company's Business Services and Technology Group, which opened in Baltimore in 2002. Incentives included benefits totaling $4 million from the state and $1.5 million from the city. Also, global asset management firm Legg Mason plans to consolidate its Baltimore operations into a new office tower in Baltimore's Harbor East District in 2009.
   Merkle, a database marketing agency whose roster of clients includes many financial services firms, will move its corporate headquarters into a new five-story, 120,000-sq.-ft. (11,150-sq.-m.) building in Columbia. Due to open in June, it will feature office space for up to 550 employees. The company has also purchased an adjacent parcel for a second, 70,000-sq.-ft. (6.500-sq.-m.) building that will house another 350 employees. The company plans to invest approximately $65 million in its new corporate campus.
   Merkle currently employs about 800 in Maryland, including 350 at its current headquarters in Lanham. The company says it will increase employment significantly as it moves into its new campus.    Gov. Martin O'Malley is in his second year as Maryland's chief executive. A former mayor of Baltimore, O'Malley recently discussed his vision for the state with Site Selection. He says the state has some decided advantages that quickly become topics of discussion when he helps the state court new business.
   "One of the overriding areas that people look at is the quality of life in Maryland," O'Malley says. "It's our greatest strength and what makes us attractive. Talented people can live anywhere they like. If you look at quality of life, our location and the talent and skill of our work force, you will be sorely pressed to find better opportunities for expansion than in Maryland and this whole Chesapeake Bay area."
   Another primary topic in expansion discussions is Maryland's work force. That's an area where O'Malley likes to exert some bragging rights. He cites a list of recent accolades for the state, including the Kauffman Foundation's ranking of Maryland as a Top 10 new economy state and Forbes magazine's assessment that the state leads in the percentage of degreed professionals. Maryland's proximity to the federal seat of government also helps, he says.
   "There's a huge annual infusion of federal research dollars into Maryland," O'Malley says. "That's a great competitive advantage. For private sector companies, it creates a work force of trained people."
   O'Malley, Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia, Washington, D.C., Mayor Adrian Fenty and other officials in the region launched the Chesapeake Crescent Initiative in late January. O'Malley says this unique partnership, which will pool resources regional resources from Baltimore to Richmond, aims at finding long-term solutions to environmental, transportation and economic challenges.
   "If you look at the collection of creative talent, the institutions of higher learning and the R&D assets we have here, both public and private, you see the potential for a tremendous regional economy in this year.
   Unfortunately it has not been marketed individually and understood individually. Across the region, we have a string of metro economies and federal and R&D assets that are world-renowned. It's not just a government effort; it's really driven by business leaders. We can work together as a region more effectively."
   Those R&D assets run the technology gamut from alternative energy to homeland security.
   Biotech is another area where Maryland has R&D muscle, including new biotech parks under way at Johns Hopkins and near the University of Maryland.
   "Every state wants to call themselves the biotech or life sciences capital. There are very few that have in such a compact area as Maryland the NIH, Johns Hopkins and Fort Detrick, home of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command and the National Cancer Institute. Biotech is a big part of who we are as a state. We have a phenomenally strong technology corridor up I-270 into Montgomery County with companies such as Medimmune and Human Genome Sciences."
   Federal institutions with large footprints in Maryland, such as the NIH, the National Security Agency, and others, give the state a sense of economic security during difficult periods, O'Malley says.
   "Maryland has moved forward most economically during times of war and national adversity. Due to the nature of this asymmetrical war on terror we are facing for the next 100 years, this region will see a tremendous amount of investment and R&D in the decades ahead," he says. "It's a fact that sometimes people don't look at, but it's real and it's happening."
   As for alternative energy, O'Malley has proposals pending in the legislature that would boost solar and geothermal tax credits and that would require green building technology to be installed in all new state buildings, including schools.
   O'Malley cites GM's Allison Transmission Plant in White Marsh (just outside of Baltimore), where the new hybrid Yukon SUV is being built, as an example of alternative energy innovation in the state.
   "Every governor in America is wrestling with energy, trying to advance toward sustainability," O'Malley says. "Hopefully we can be a big part of that."    The University of Maryland's real estate development program, one of six emphasizing sustainable development at U.S. universities, figures to get a lot greener with a large donation from a Baltimore developer. The program will use a $3-million gift from John Colvin, a principal of Questar, to create a new track in the program focusing specifically on sustainable development, with new courses on green design, sustainable development, energy financing and public-private financing
   The program covers a broad spectrum of issues involved in developing land with an emphasis on "green" approaches to all aspects of design and development, including energy efficiency for structures and communities, adaptive reuse of historic and older buildings, innovative approaches to planning and permitting in support of smart growth, public-private partnerships that support mixed-use, transit-oriented development and affordable housing.