NEW YORK CITY—“It's what you do in the dark that puts you in the light.”

That's the slogan in Under Armour's 2016 commercial showing Michael Phelps' preparation to return to the Olympics earlier this past summer—where his staggering haul was five gold medals and one silver—after announcing his retirement in 2012, and it also seems to be an unofficial mantra of the sportswear firm and its founder, Kevin Plank.

In an impossible-not-to-be-inspired-by-it talk, the keynote speaker Monday at ICSC New York's National Deal Making Conference focused not just on efforts by his firm to deliver “the biggest, badest brand on the planet” but to go well beyond that by “redefining the role of companies in their communities,” shared Plank, who also serves as the company's CEO and chairman of the board.

More specifically, to begin with, the firm is building a new corporate campus in its Baltimore headquarters, having outgrown its existing location in the city's Inner Harbor. The massive undertaking will create jobs and is also set to overhaul infrastructure, Plank said.

“Whenever there's a problem, the underlying theme is always jobs. Baltimore is our city but one part looks like a postcard while the other appears like (a Time Magazine cover he displayed that showcased crime and the battle between police and African-American citizens).”

He continued, “We asked how could we help repair the city? That's why we're building our campus in Baltimore, it's a way to attract people.”

Plank also injected life into the community by buying Sagamore Farm, a horse breeding farm for American thoroughbreds that once was owned by Alfred G. Vanderbilt II. Used today by Under Armour for meetings, the Port Covington, MD-site last year saw the ground-breaking of a five-acre whiskey distillery. Now under development, the site is slated to feature a tasting room, restaurant, visitors center and hotel, and is expected to generate over 100,000 visitors.

Meanwhile, Port Convington also features City Garage, a 140,000-square-foot space that hosts an Under Armour innovation center as well as an incubator for people to learn a new trade. With $25 million in funding, the facility is used for training, jobs and it houses early stage companies.

For the new headquarters, UA has amassed 260 acres on contiguous land on water in recent years—a fact that drew gasps from ICSC attendees. The area's development, in fact, has led to plans for a massive infrastructure overhaul designed to ultimately give Baltimore a boost.

“Our goal is to connect Washington, DC to New York City in less than an hour,” Plank stated. “It's a 313 mile train that's already in Japan and it's the kind of bet this country should be making.”

UA also is opening a breast cancer center at neighboring Johns Hopkins University and—in the wake of an announcement Monday that the company had been named the official outfitter of Major League Baseball beginning in 2020—Plank noted, “We outfit every varsity kid in Baltimore and our goal is to outfit every kid athlete in the city.”

He spotlighted several of his company's successes, pointing up the fact that, “When we do well, we can do good. We can make philanthropy part of our culture.”

But the new infrastructure development is the key to the future, Plank stated. “This is meant to be the matchstick Baltimore needs and, if it works, why can't we do it in Cincinnati, Charlotte and Detroit?”

For now though, he states, he is focused on his hometown. “It's a new day in Baltimore.”

NEW YORK CITY—“It's what you do in the dark that puts you in the light.”

He continued, “We asked how could we help repair the city? That's why we're building our campus in Baltimore, it's a way to attract people.”

He spotlighted several of his company's successes, pointing up the fact that, “When we do well, we can do good. We can make philanthropy part of our culture.”

For now though, he states, he is focused on his hometown. “It's a new day in Baltimore.”

Instant Insights /

Under Armour CEO Driven by Giving Back

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