A developer might scrap his plans to build a $65 million shopping and residential center in north Baltimore if the City Council passes a bill requiring big-box stores to pay their employees a “livng wage,” the developer's attorney told the council Thursday.

“A large number of our tenants would be affected. Frankly, it imperils the future of the project,” attorney Jon Laria, a representative for WV Urban Developments, told a council subcommittee at a hearing.

The bill died, for now, in a tie vote in the Labor subcommittee, but lead sponsor Mary Pat Clarke held out hope it would be resurrected, noting that Councilman Nicholas D'Amato, who supports the bill, could not attend the hearing and that his vote would have made the difference.

"It's not well but it's alive," Clarke said of the bill. "Ideally we could get the committee to reconsider. It's really too important" to let die.

WV, headed by developer Rick Walker, wants to build 25th Street Station, with a Walmart and a Lowe’s as anchors, on 11 acres at 25th and Howard streets in Remington.

The current owner of the property, Anderson Automotive, is moving next year to Hunt Valley.

Other stores that want to be in the shopping center include  Staples, Marshall’s and Anna’s Linens, a 300-store chain.

Laria was one of dozens of speakers at the hearing of the Labor subcommittee, which ran more than four hours. The testimony reflected deep divisions over the bill, which was introduced by Clarke of the 14th District in north Baltimore

The bill stated that its purpose is “to promote living wage jobs to help working families make ends meet.”

The legislation would require retailers that earn a profit of$10 million or more a year to pay workers a living wage of $10.59 per hour. Employers could knock $2 off the wage if they use that money for employee benefits. Restaurants would be exempt under the bill.

Supporters of the legislation included unions, Progressive Maryland, the NAACP, a waitress, and the owner of a sex toy shop.

“This bill is good for retail, it’s good for residents and it’s good for the economy,” said Jacq Jones, owner of Sugar, a sex toy shop on The Avenue in Hampden.

“A living wage gives a person more pride and purpose,” said Brian Nesbit, an organizer for the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 27.

“A living wage is just that,” he said. “Anything else is not.”

“This bill is a great economic development bill,” Clarke said.

“I’m sitting here in support of people trying to make it,” said Councilwoman Belinda Conaway of the 7th District.

Conaway, who represents Hampden, supports the bill. She introduced a separate bill earlier this year to amend zoning of the site to allow a shopping center there.

But many state and local business and trade groups and economic development agencies lined up against the bill, saying companies would lose money and leave the city, or not expand.

Several council members also expressed skepticism. One was Rikki Spector, who represents Mount Washington.

“The math doesn’t work,” she said. “If it’s going to cost the employer more money, they’re going to make less.”

And District 13 Councilman Warren Branch, the subcommittee chairman, elicited an admission that not all city employees make the proposed living wage.

“Shouldn’t we clean up our own house first before we talk about cleaning up somebody else’s house?” he asked.

A leading critic of the bill was M.J. “Jay” Brodie, president of the Baltimore Development Corp., which serves as the city’s quasi-public economic development agency.

Brodie called Clarke’s bill “well-intentioned” and “a noble aspiration,” but he noted that the agency’s mission is to retain existing businesses and attract new ones.

And he worried that businesses might leave rather than pay the higher wages.

“You can’t retain them if they’re not here,” he said.

This story has been updated.

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user comments (1)

user iwasthere says...

Larry - there are NO other tenants signed on to 25th Street Station. Wal-Mart & Lowe's....that's it. You could really one-up The Sun by reporting just the facts unless, of course, you are hoping to get some of those great Walmart & Sams Club ads.

Posted 9:22 AM, 07.23.10

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