The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • 25

THE SUN PAGE 11C TUESDAY, DJI DOWN 4.64 TABLE PAGE 14C JULY 31, 1984 WMBWB Opening of Brokerage office complex delayed to serve as the exclusive leasing agents for the project's office space, replacing Casey, Miller, Kornblatt and Burns. Courtney Lord Associates Ltd. of Washington has been named leasing agent for the retail space. Mr. Lord's firm replaces a series of agents who worked for Mr.

Horwitz, including one agent who recently worked for Mr. Lord. Sigal Construction Company of Washington has begun work as the contractor in charge of finishing the interior of the shopping center and completing other finish work. It replaces Tiber Construction Company of Virginia, which has completed its work as general contractor. The new opening date represents the latest of several postponements in the opening of the Brokerage, which originally was scheduled to open in early 1984, then this summer, and mostly recently on September 28.

It represents a short-term setback to the continued revitalization of the Inner Harbor, since the Bro Frederick and Baltimore streets. A two-story market building in the middle of Market place is also part of the complex, which will contain 122,000 square feet of retail space on two levels and 110,000 square feet of upper-level office space. The complex was conceived more than six years ago as a unique combination of rehabilitated buildings and new construction on a historic site that served as the city's first marketplace, Marsh Market The developers have said they want the retail area to be a "high end" fashion center that caters to area residents instead of tourists. The reorganization of the Brokerage's top management has been accompanied by other changes. For example: Architects Louis Battistone and Tim Crosby have been hired to replace the local firm of Cho, Wilks and Burns, which replaced Meyers and D'Aleo, Inc.

Coldwell Banker Commercial Real Estate Services has been hired i A rv Volcker defends aid to bank WASHINGTON (AP) If Continental Illinois National Bank had failed, leading to "frozen deposits if not deposit losses" for other big banks holding accounts there, doubts could have been raised about the health of those institutions as well, Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker said yesterday. Mr. Volcker defended the federal government's multibillion-dollar rescue effort for the Chicago bank. He said the government would be ready to jump into action again, if another big bank were threatened with failure. "We are certainly going to try our hardest and we have powerful tools at our disposal to provide a continuation of banking services and avoid that kind of shock to the system," he said.

Mr. Volcker, testifying before the congressional Joint Economic Committee, said the problems of big banks have been complicated by an international financial situation in which some developing countries have had trouble making payments on huge loans to U.S. banks. At such a time, he said, failure of Continental "could clearly have influences directly on the depositors involved" meaning other big banks. If the government had not guaranteed all of Continental's deposits which the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation announced it would do last spring questions could have been raised "whether pressures would extend to other banks that might be in a fundamentally stronger position than Continental Illinois was," Mr.

Volcker said. By Ed Gunts The grand opening of the Brokerage at the Inner Harbor, the office and shopping complex on Market place that was scheduled to open this September, has been postponed until next March as part of a series of eleventh-hour changes with the project Developer Mark Horwitz was scheduled today to announce the six-month delay in the Brokerage's opening along with details of a sweeping reorganization in the project's development team. As part of that reorganization, Mr. Horwitz has acquired a new managing partner, Sovereign Realty, of Philadelphia. The firm, a subsidiary of Butcher and Singer, of Philadelphia, already has begun working with Mr.

Horwitz to oversee leasing and management of the project, as well as completion of design and construction. Before this summer, Mr. Horwitz was the project's sole managing partner. Sovereign also plans to invest another $6 million to cover rising development costs and additional work still to be completed as part of a redesign initiated by the new management team, according to project manager Randall Schrader. The delay in opening and the additional expenditures will increase the project's total cost from $30 million to between $35 million and $36 million, he said.

Bank of America National Trust and Savings Association of San Francisco, which already has lent $25 million for the project, remains as lender to the new joint team. The bank, the nation's largest, will increase its commitment to the project by lending half of the additional $6 million that Sovereign is investing, according to Mr. Schrader. Sovereign will provide the rest, he said. The changes represent a last-minute rethinking of plans for the mixed-use development, which is nearing completion on the block bounded by Market place and Water, BUSINESS i BHIEFLY 3-month T-bills rise Yields on three-month Treasury bills rose to their highest level in two i years yesterday while the rates on six-month bills remained unchanged, the government reported.

The gov-' eminent sold $13.2 billion in new se-J," curities half in three-month bills at an average discount rate of 10.40 percent, up from last week's 10.30 I percent, and half in six-month bills at an average discount rate of 10.64 percent, the same as last week. NASD bars Clinton man The National Association of Secu-rrity Dealers announced yesterday that it had barred James H. Williams, of Clinton, from working for any NASD firm and fined him $5,000. Mr. Williams, who had for Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York before he fired, was barred because he refused to respond to written NASD requests for information, according to NASD spokesman.

latin loan repaid "r2 Argentina has repaid a $300 million emergency loan from four Latin American nations and is moving forward in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, the central president was quoted as saying yesterday in Buenos Aires. "The newspaper La Nation quot-gi Enrique Garcia Vasquez as say-ng that Argentina used its hard currency reserves to repay $100 million Teach to Venezuela and Mexico and $50 million to Brazil Last week it reported that a $50 million repayment was made to Colombia. GM price changes General Motors Corporation said yesterday in Detroit it has raised the prices of its hot-selling Pontiac Fiero sports car by $205 and its newly introduced Japanese-made Chevrolet Sprint minicar by $202. GM cut the prices of its slow-selling diesel engines and lowered prices on the Chevrolet Chevette-Pontiac 1000 subcompact cars. Although car sales up this year, sales of diesel-equipped cars have plummeted.

Suppliers get GM plea i Completion of the Brokerage project, on the left, is being delayed. On the right is the old Fish Market, for which the city's housing commissioner is expected to name a developer in August. A Rossi team strong contender for Fish Market site kerage was to have been one of the few permanent additions to be com-J pleted near the waterfront this year. The delay also means that the' Brokerage will come on the market at about the same time as two other Inner Harbor projects, the Six Flags power plant and Harbor Exchange the $20 million conversion of the old Baltimore and Ohio warehouse in! Camden Yards to offices and dis-i count shops. The developers could have ad hered to a September 28 opening date, but the mall would have opened only 50 to 60 percent leased, he said.

By next March it should be closer to 80 percent leased, he said. "It's a question of doing it fast and conceivably dropping some balls or doing it slowly and doing it cor rectly," Mr. Horwitz said. "With partners like Butcher and Singer and the Bank of America, you do it correctly. The main reason for the delay in opening, he added, is that construction was six months behind schedule it I THE SUN197J market and an artists' center.

Since the bids were received, several have been modified, and one has been withdrawn. As part of the review process, Mrs. Pines has appointed a large citizen's panel to screen the proposals and hear oral presentations from the bidders. Among the changes that have taken place with the proposals since they first were submitted are that: Fairfax Properties Corporation, which proposed converting the market to a $3.7 million "pleasure See FISH, 13C, Col. 4 week, the work force gradually increased to 10,000.

Much of the yard's work was concerned with conversions. After World War II, the company began acquiring the equipment installed by the government during the war years. There was so much of it that Maryland Drydock did not finish buying it until 1950. The yard continued to handle defense contracts, some of them only marginally connected with ships. For instance, it built catapults for launching target drone aircraft.

Thirty years ago by which time the firm was about ready to change its name to Maryland Shipbuilding and Drydock Company its chief naval architect, M. Mack Earle, conceived the idea for "jum-boizing" ships. Mr. Earle first converted World War vintage tankers to Great Lakes ore carriers. In succeeding years, his plan for cutting a ship in half and inserting a new mid-body was adopted throughout the shipbuilding industry and used on vessels of many designs.

The yard handled a variety of contracts. Shipowners sent their most badly damaged vessels to the yard for repairs. The yard built the world's first "open ocean" hydrofoil, and it overhauled the hospital ship HOPE. A decade ago, the yard underwent its last big expansion, a $30 million program chiefly involved with new equipment, including the huge floating drydock built in West Germany and towed here in the late spring of 1974. More than 825 feet long and 150 feet wide, the drydock could repair vessels of up to 125,000 deadweight tons and was the largest of its kind on the East or Gulf coasts.

In recent years, though, this yard near the western end of the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel and other American yards have suffered greatly from competition with foreign yards, whicj have much jver overhead. I fit I UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL PAUL VOLCKER Maintaining banking services Maryland Shipbuilding still open; purchase efforts continue By Ed Gunts As changes at the Brokerage are being made public, city officials are getting ready to announce the selection of a team to recycle the adjacent Fish Market property, for which the city received 10 bids earlier this year. A strong contender to win the rights to develop the prime Inner Harbor site either by itself or in joint venture with another group is a team headed by San Francisco-based developer A. Cal Rossi, whose project would be financed by the same group that is funding the mwinniiiiiu 11 'init'tiii General Motors is asking some of Its suppliers to either hold the line or prices for components to be used in its 1985 model year vehicles, the trade paper Automotive News said. Earlier this year, the paper said GM's Buick and Chevrolet divisions srsent letters to many suppliers asking Tthat component prices be reduced at Breast 3.3 percent annually over the "next three years to reflect gains in 'productivity.

Zl Three-year contracts were of-" fered in some cases if suppliers would agree to drop prices by as much as 5 percent annually, the pa- per said, while increases attributed to higher raw material costs were to be absorbed by the manufacturer. 85 5 sues over patent tm Black Decker Manufacturing Company yesterday filed suit against Robeson Industries Corpora-Hion in Nassau county, N.Y., for in- fringement of patent rights that the "Dustbuster" and "Car sVac" vacuum cleaners. In its suit, Black and Decker charges Robeson with marketing a product called Butler" that illegally uses the Towson-based power tool manufacturer's design patent. June building pacts off PnntronHnfl fnr our rnnctruHnn -fell 10 percent from May to June, lKf Housing Commissioner Marion Pines is expected to announce the selection of a developer for the former Fish Market and the lot north of it during August, and possibly within the next week or 10 days. It will be the culmination of a lengthy selection process that has been closely guarded since April, when developers submitted proposals ranging in cost from $1.1 million to $60 million.

The projects included several hotel and entertainment complexes, two cabaret-style music theaters, a maritime center, a visitors' orientation center, a winery, a boat super -ft -r quired by Koppers Company, becoming the most important part of its metal products division, Koppers gained control of the shipyard, too. Koppers sold its controlling interest to a New York investment banking concern, Shields late in 1941, about a month before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Much of the stock was sold, once more, to Baltimore investors. During the defense buildup of that time, the yard launched one of its several expansions. The Navy suggested that three city streets be closed to give the yard more space, and much new equipment was installed at government expense.

World War II was only months old when Maryland Drydock Company won the Army-Navy Away. Working three shifts, seven days a Brokerage, the Bank of America. Mr. Rossi's project, tentatively called The Baltimore Plaza Hotel, calls for the construction of a "five-star" hotel with up to 400 guest rooms and a street-level entertainment complex at a cost of $60 million. In addition to its backing by the Bank of America, Mr.

Rossi's proposal is considered strong, because it represents the greatest potential investment in the area (three times more than any other developer proposed), and because it is expected to draw the same kind of visitors as the Brokerage. MARYLAND SHIPBUILDING Litvr UULiV CO. 17 plant FNTRANrr I i tff iHj' I -rll. ft-I dLTi UDAG is to be considered again by the Department of Housing and Urban Development in late September. Mr.

Walls declined to say which bank or banks he is negotiating with. Ship repair work began at the Fairfield location in the first weeks of 1920, after Baltimore financial interests led by Alex. Brown Sons, Robert Garrett Sons and Fidelity Trust Company acquired the Globe Shipbuilding Company, of Superior, and moved it here. The company was reorganized about two years later and in March, 1922, changed its name to Maryland Drydock Company. By 1928, Howard Bruce's Bart-lett-Hayward Company had voting control of ie shipyard company, and when Bartlett-Hayward was ac 4 By Jesse Glasgow Maryland Shipbuilding and Dry-dock Company, which both corporate and union officials said 10 days ago would close on July 30, is not quite closed.

Gerry P. Walls, a company vice president, said about 60 people were working yesterday, some in offices and others doing basic maintenance work. "Nothing has changed," said Mr. Walls, who is heading a group that is trying to buy the Fairfield yard from its owner, Detroit-based Fruehauf Corporation. Fruehauf, one of the largest transportation equipment manufacturers, acquired a 91.62 percent interest in Maryland Shipbuilding and Drydock in an exchange of stock completed in April, 1968, and acquired the remaining shares in 1973.

Walter Pestridge, spokesman for the union representing the shipyard's hourly paid work force, said union officials would meet tomorrow morning with Fruehauf officials at the yard to discuss how Fruehauf would handle the closing. Mr. Pestridge, for 33 years a pipefitter at the yard, is executive secretary for Local 31 of the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America, representing about 1,500 blue-collar workers, most of whom already are laid off. Arnold P. Mcllwain, president of Maryland Shipbuilding and Drydock, was not available for comment.

A former chief financial officer of the company, in recent years he has been Fruehauf's executive vice president for maritime operations. Mr. Mcllwain has offices in Jacksonville, where Fruehauf has another shipyard, and late yesterday he was en route to Baltimore. He has been quoted as saying that Fruehauf considered selling Maryland Shipbuilding and Drydock as long ago as 1979, but the first announcement from corporate headquarters came early this year. The coirpany said it would close and liquidate the company if no I fc-but the value of contracts awarded iHthe first half of 1984 rose 12 percent from the first six months of the F.W.

Dodge division of McGraw-Hill Information Systems Company said yesterday in New wiYork. 5 'jThe value of construction contracts siped in June fell to $20 bullion from about $22 billion in May and $20.3 billion in June, 1983, the construction industry analysis unit of, McGraw-Hill, said-m Dollar sets new highs I "In another record-shattering per- I Sformance, the dollar reached new I "highs yesterday against the curren- cies of Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, Norway, Sweden and South 1 2 'Gold prices drifted, with bullion "bid at $342 a troy ounce as of 4 p.m. THE SUNPAUL HUTCHINS Maryland Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, as photographed from the road. Photographer was denied access to the entrance of the plant, which may be closed soon. buyer were found by May 1.

In answer to questions about the disposition, Adolph B. Silverstein, Fruehauf controller, said the company would rush to sell the yard "if it was a real turkey." Later, he said that the yard needs a couple of new drydocks, and that while it may not be a turkey, it is "no crowing rooster either." Long before what sounded like a May 1 deadline was set, it became known that Mr. Walls was putting together a group to make a purchase offer. He said yesterday that Fruehauf has not given him a letter of intent to sell, that his negotiations for bank financing are "on track," and that an application for an Urban Development Action Grant (UDAG) is pending. The application for an $8 million in-after-hours trading at Republic National Bank in New York.

Not only did the dollar set new Wrecords against several leading European currencies, but the Federal Reserve Board's index, measuring the dollar against 10 currencies and weighted on the basis of trade, rose to an all-time high of 140.86 from the previous high of 140.70 on "Friday. The index stood at 100 in March, 1973. ''3 From Wire Services.