Under Armour Announces Plan to Move Headquarters from Locust Point to Port Covington in 2025
Today, Under Armour announced plans to build a five-story, 284,000 sq. ft. office building at its 50-acre Port Covington property at 2601 Port Covington Dr. This will allow the company to move its global headquarters and have its Baltimore workforce together in one location.
The company’s headquarters is currently at Tide Point in Locust Point. It also has the 170,000 sq. ft. Building 37 office building at its Port Covington property and leases space at City Garage in Port Covington.
The transition to Port Covington will happen in three phases. The first phase is for UA LightHouse, which is currently at City Garage, to relocate to Building 37 in mid-2022. Under Armour vacated Building 37 in early-2020 so that renovations could begin.
The second phase will be construction of a NCAA-regulation track and field facility with a multi-sport playing field on land just east of Building 37. This facility will serve primarily as a testing ground for Under Armour’s innovation, product development, and sports marketing. The athletic facility will also be available to Under Armour team members and the greater Baltimore community through shared-use agreements and special events. It will have bleachers with a seating capacity of 1,400.
Neil Jurgens, senior vice president of real estate at Under Armour, said he envisions a lot of “Friday night lights” at the stadium by hosting high school football games and additional events. He also noted the track will be open to the public. There will additionally be three new outdoor basketball courts along the Patapsco River.
Under Armour will unveil detailed plans for its new office building in late-2021 or early 2022 with hopes of opening it in the first quarter of 2024. Along with office spaces that are designed for collaboration in a post-COVID-19 world, it will also have a 30,000 sq. ft. Under Armour retail store.
This building will be at the north portion of its campus, near Cromwell St. and the new buildings in Chapter 1 of the Port Covington Development. The Port Covington Development team is made up of Under Armour Founder and Chairman Kevin Plank’s Sagamore Ventures, Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group, and Weller Development.
Under Amour expects to have about 1,100 employees a day at its Port Covington campus. The company, which has mostly worked remote during the pandemic, will have a portion of its workforce on campus everyday, a portion entirely remote, and a portion in a hybrid model.
There are no plans for a parking structure at Under Armour’s Port Covington campus at this time. Employees and visitors will utilize surface parking lots.
The new campus will be a 40 percent reduction of its office footprint, but the Port Covington property has room for future growth.
Under Armour recently announced sustainability goals of a 30 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and the use of 80 percent renewable energy by 2025.
The Under Amour campus and its waterfront spaces will be open to the public.
Under Armour expects to fully vacate Locust Point by 2025. It owns the Tide Point campus and parking lots, which Jurgens said will be put up for sale. The company leases a former warehouse, which was turned into an office building, across the street, and it will let the lease expire on that building.
“Under Armour’s global headquarters at Port Covington will become the primary home to our Americas business and our core global functions,” said Patrik Frisk, CEO and president of Under Armour, in a press release. “The campus will represent the future of performance grounded in innovation, that embodies the ethos we live, breathe, and sweat as a team every single day. We are excited to continue our commitment to the City of Baltimore and provide an even better workspace for teammates, a new retail location and a best-in-class athletic facility, as we plan for the future of the brand.”
“In planning our new global headquarters, we utilized industry-leading commercial experts to consult on the campus’ design,” said Jurgens in a press release. “In line with one of our core values, Act Sustainably, the campus will include several sustainable and intelligent building design features that align with our commitment to environmental responsibility, including substantially lowering the company’s carbon footprint and energy usage, while contributing to the overall success of the greater Baltimore community.”
Under Armour first announced plans to build a new campus at the former the Port Covington Shopping Center in 2016. The latest plan is scaled down from its initial master plan that called for 4 million sq. ft. of new buildings. Phase One of that master plan was to include 500,000 sq. ft. of new buildings. It also opened Building 37 in 2016, converting a former Sam’s Club into an office building.
Jurgens said Under Armour plans to keep the former Walmart building at the southern tip of the property “for the time being.” It has used the building for actives such as warehouse sales and PPE production.
The new Under Armour campus is a completely different project from the Port Covington Development, even though Plank has partial ownership in both. Under Armour purchased the land for its campus from Sagamore Ventures in 2016. The Under Armour campus will not use any of the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) bonds awarded to the Port Covington Development.
Chapter 1B is currently under construction at the Port Covington Development, just northeast of the Under Amour property. Chapter 1B will add five buildings totaling 1.1 million sq. ft. The buildings will add apartments, hotel rooms, office spaces, retail, event spaces, and public green spaces to Port Covington.
This article has been updated
Renderings courtesy of Under Armour
About the Author: Kevin Lynch
Founder and Publisher of SouthBmore.com, longtime resident of South Baltimore, and a graduate of Towson University. Diehard Ravens and O's fan, father of three, amateur pizza chef, skateboarder, and "bar food" foodie. Email me at Kevin@InceptMM.com and follow me on Twitter at @SoBoKevin.
