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PROPERTY ASSESSMENTS UP 20%: Property tax assessments in Maryland will climb in 2025, reflecting the state’s tight housing inventory and rising home prices and leading to higher tax bills for many owners. The total assessed value on residential and commercial property around the state rose a combined 20.1% over three years, according to the State Department of Assessments and Taxation. Lorraine Mirabella/Baltimore Sun
- Property values increased in southern Frederick County 28.6% from three years ago, new assessments show. These trends mirrored statewide trends. In Maryland, commercial property values for the newly reassessed region increased 16.4% and residential ones by 21.1%, when compared to 2022 values. Cameron Adams/Frederick News-Post
WORKING WITH JIMMY CARTER ON BALTIMORE HOMES: Sonia Street still vividly remembers the summer day in 1992 when she met Jimmy Carter outside her West Baltimore home — and he taught her how to hold a hammer. The former president, who died Sunday at age 100, arrived that day in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood with his wife, Rosalynn, in work clothes and anxious to begin rehabbing vacant row houses. It was the Carters’ second visit to Baltimore to promote Habitat for Humanity’s worldwide mission of revitalizing decaying communities. John Rydell/Maryland Matters
PURPLE LINE PROJECT COSTS 20 TIMES MORE THAN ESTIMATED: When the Purple Line train across D.C.’s Maryland suburbs was being planned in 2016, the cost of a mezzanine that would connect the Bethesda stop to Metro’s Red Line station was estimated at $2.4 million. Eight years later, the light-rail line still isn’t finished and the projected cost has doubled. The cost of design and construction of the new mezzanine alone has increased twentyfold; a contract was announced this month for $52 million. Rachel Weiner/The Washington Post
STATE SEEKS DEVELOPERS AT ODENTON STATION: Five years ago, the two surface parking lots at the Odenton MARC station were packed with cars by 7 a.m. every work day. Given the pandemic’s effect on the work-at-home revolution, today the lots only get about half-full. That could be part of what led to the Maryland Department of Transportation’s request for qualifications to provide the housing, retail and enhanced connectivity that have been planned for decades in the Odenton Town Center transit-oriented development. Iit’s hoped that the new $35 million, more than 1,000-space parking garage that’s slated to rise in the south lot across from Ruth’s Chris Steak House will finally boost the overall project forward. Mark Smith/The Business Monthly
BIDEN COMMUTES SENTENCE OF MD. SUSPECTED KILLER: A Maryland woman will end home detention early after she was convicted or suspected in the murders of three men, fraudulently collecting around $160,000 in life insurance benefits following their deaths. Josephine Gray was convicted in 2002 of mail and wire fraud and sentenced to 40 years in prison. President Joe Biden this month commuted her sentence, along with nearly 1,500 other people who also were placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic. Gray’s home detention ends in April. Brooke Conrad/Baltimore Sun
STATE BETS BIG ON APPRENTICESHIPS: State has committed millions of dollars to foster new career paths for students who don’t choose college after high school. Bria Overs/Baltimore Banner
