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Thriller Author’s Harbor Pent-house Condo

March 4, 2012 by · Comments Off on Thriller Author’s Harbor Pent-house Condo 

Thriller Author’s Harbor Pent-house Condo, Tom Clancy has given a bit of a boost to the battered condominium market – at least in Baltimore. The novelist this week paid $12.6 million for three condos that will be combined to create an 11,959-square-foot pent-house in the Ritz-Carlton Residences in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, according to published reports and people familiar with the matter.

The price amounts to $1,054 per square foot. That’s a stratospheric price tag for gritty Baltimore, where average condo sales run in the range of $300 to $500 per square foot and luxury condos go for $600 to $800 per.

“I think it’s probably the largest [condo sale in Baltimore] by a long shot,” said Bob Merbler, a partner in Baltimore brokerage Yerman, Witman, Gaines & Conklin Realty LLC, who specializes in luxury-condo sales but wasn’t involved in the Clancy deal. “A few years ago, if you had a $1 million or $2 million house in Baltimore city, that raised eyebrows.”

Developer RXR Realty LLC completed construction of the 191-unit Ritz Carlton Residences last summer. Unlike other hotel-residence projects that offer both hotel rooms and for-sale condos, the Baltimore project is made up solely of for-sale condos. However, residents there do get access to hotel amenities such as concierge service, a spa and an indoor pool.

The market for luxury condos in such developments has collapsed in the past year as the recession has wiped out would-be buyers of the residences. Many such projects stalled in construction due to anemic sales. Marriott International Inc., Ritz-Carlton’s parent, disclosed in September that it no longer will build such hotel-residence projects, though it will manage and license its brands to those built by other developers.

At the Baltimore Ritz Carlton Residences, RXR has sold 23 units and has another 15 under contract, RXR Chief Executive Officer Scott Rechler said.

Mall Evacuated Shoe

February 9, 2012 by · Comments Off on Mall Evacuated Shoe 

Mall Evacuated Shoe, Brawls break out at a Maryland mall over shoes. And it’s not the first time shoppers have gone too far for Nikes.Kai Jackson explains what’s driving the chaos. The store had more anxious customers than they had sneakers for sale-and that was a recipe for trouble.

Valley Mall in Hagerstown is peaceful now, but a sneaker, Nike’s new Foam tennis shoe, caused near-riot conditins inside the mall on Saturday, like a melee at another mall in December after Nike released a popular pair of Air jordans.

“Just a fight going on down there at Foot Locker. Arguments; someone said that there was knives pulled,” said mall employee Cassandra Jenkins.

About a dozen officers responded and moved all customers outside. They say the problem was a classic dilemma: supply and demand. There were 150 customers, but only 90 pairs of shoes for sale. They sold out in minutes.

“What we did is we brought in five customers at a time, let them get their shoes and just kept rotating like that,” said Sheriff Doug Mullendore.

Ford Motor Company

February 6, 2012 by · Comments Off on Ford Motor Company 

Ford Motor Company, Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903.

In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK. Ford’s former UK subsidiaries Jaguar and Land Rover were sold to Tata Motors of India in March 2008. In 2010 Ford sold Volvo to Geely Automobile. Ford discontinued the Mercury brand after the 2011 model year.

Ford introduced methods for large-scale manufacturing of cars and large-scale management of an industrial workforce using elaborately engineered manufacturing sequences typified by moving assembly lines. Henry Ford’s methods came to be known around the world as Fordism by 1914.

Dirty Jobs Host

February 6, 2012 by · Comments Off on Dirty Jobs Host 

Dirty Jobs Host, Michael Gregory “Mike” Rowe ( born March 18, 1962) is an American media personality best known as the host of the Discovery Channel series Dirty Jobs.

 He can also be heard as narrator on a variety of series and has appeared in recurring commercials for Ford Motor Company. In the early 1990s Rowe was an on-air host for the shop-at-home TV channel QVC. When interviewed, Rowe relates how he got the job at QVC:

I was in the opera at the time. I walked across the street with a buddy of mine (during a performance) – we’re dressed as Vikings and we have a drink.

The TV is turned to QVC. … My buddy bets me $100 I can’t get a call back. So … I crashed the audition and got a job on the spot. I basically turned the whole thing into my own stupid David Letterman show – I made fun of the callers and made fun of the products. Rowe currently resides in San Francisco, California.

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