Oak View Group (OVG), the company that redeveloped CFG Bank Arena and has a 30-year lease on the property, considered building a new arena before committing to renovating Baltimore’s existing Downtown arena. OVG CEO Tim Leiweke was a guest on Weller Development’s ‘From The Ground Up’ podcast and detailed the different opportunities the organization considered in the years leading up to the CFG Bank Arena renovation.
The two sites OVG considered were at the Port Covington development (now known as Baltimore Peninsula), which was led by Weller Development before it transitioned to new development partners MAG Partners and MacFarlane Partners last year, and at the Wheelabrator Baltimore trash burning facility at 1801 Annapolis Rd., just south of Horseshoe Casino Baltimore.
Weller Development President and Founding Partner Marc Weller said on the podcast, “We were looking to add to that massive project we built in Baltimore, the Port Covington project, and we were really serious about an arena and found the perfect partner [OVG].”
On the podcast, Leiweke said:
“The only political way to get a deal done in Baltimore was the renovation. We went way down the road on Port Covington, and it was actually a brilliant concept. Because what it was, was a point of destination that would’ve been another moment of redefining Baltimore and creating some usages with people like the NBA and people like the music community including our current partner Pharrell. And doing things there would’ve transformed the economy and the people that ultimately would’ve come to visit Baltimore.”
