Development plans call for the 220,500-sf, 13-story building tobe transformed into a mixed-use office building with a 196-keyboutique hotel and restaurant. Currently the class B officebuilding is only half occupied, according to Andrew Benioff,managing partner at BlueStone Real Estate Capital, a real estateinvestment bank that secured the financing. "It is anunderperforming building," Benioff tells GlobeSt.com, "butabsolutely beautiful." Some of the current tenants are leaving, hesays, and the remaining ones will be consolidated ontoapproximately three floors.

According to ARCWheeler's website, the B&O project will bethe first of the developer's "10" boutique hotel brand. Oncecompleted, the building will consist of one-third office space andtwo-thirds hotel and restaurant. The exterior, which featuresgranite from New Hampshire, bedford stone from Indiana, terra cottatile trim, and seven different kinds of marble imported from sixcountries, will be preserved. The building was designed byarchitect James Gamble Rogers. In 2001 the City of Baltimore'sCommission for Historical and Architectural Preservation and theMaryland Historical Trust designated it one the city's ten mosthistorically consequential buildings.

The loan to cost ratio for the four-year loan is 80%, and can beextended at the option of the borrower with two 12-monthextensions, according to BlueStone. There is also an IO periodduring the renovation and for the first year ramp up, Benioff says.The financing was hammered out four, five months ago, he adds, andjust now closed. "It would have been a lot more difficult to getthese terms in the current environment," he says.