In his office reception area, standing over a scale model of downtown Baltimore, M.J. “Jay” Brodie comes off as the unassuming engineer/professor who lights up when talking shop.
And that he does, as he eagerly points to miniature replicas of downtown and Inner Harbor buildings that helped transform Baltimore City into a major tourist attraction.
As president of the Baltimore Development Corp., Brodie oversees multimillion-dollar development projects that create hundreds of jobs, alter a neighborhood?s character and the city?s landscape.
“What I don?t like is when I get a call and someone says all we do is focus on downtown,” Brodie said. “They don?t realize that 80 percent of our work is in neighborhoods outside of downtown.”
Baltimore Development Corp. is a nonprofit quasi public/private organization that has a standing contract with Baltimore to handle economic development for the city.
It serves as a one-stop shop for developers and businesses looking to build, expand and relocate to the city.
The board of directors is a who?s who of Baltimore City with top corporate officials from big-name companies such as Verizon, M&T Bank, Legg Mason, Bank of America and T. Rowe Price Associates. The staff of 64 is divided into teams that focus on specific types of development and regions of the city.
And leading the charge is Brodie, who became president in 1996.
“Jay is extremely bright and extremely hardworking,” said Deborah Hunt Devan, an attorney with Neuberger, Quinn, Gielen, Rubin & Gibber in Baltimore. She has been a board member of the Baltimore Development Corp. for the past seven years.
Brodie, a trained architect, played a role in the design of Camden Yards, which opened in 1992 and ushered in an era of ballpark designs imitated in other cities.
More detail
» About $520 million in development is planned for the Inner Harbor area between 2006-08.
» In 2005, the morethan $100 million Spinnaker Bay opened in Inner Harbor featuring, retail, rental, condo properties.
» Baltimore Development Board has 14 members including appointees from the Mayor?s Office.
