When Baltimore-based The Cordish Cos. set out to carve out an entertainment district from a failed office and retail complex two blocks north of the Inner Harbor, it tried an approach that seemed like a good idea at the time.

Besides seeking tenants for Power Plant Live!, the family-owned company began looking for ways to create its own tenants, either by managing existing brands or forming new ones.

Twenty-five years later, the Baltimore-launched Live! concept has multiplied across the country.

The bulk of the tenants are Cordish-owned, -operated and -staffed by the company’s 20,000 employees. David Cordish, chairman and CEO of the firm he took over from his father in the late 1960s, says instincts about keeping control over occupancy proved right.

“We didn’t know how right,” Cordish, 85, said in a recent interview. “And we didn’t know we’d be any good at it. It’s really matured as a concept.”

The company is marking the 25th year of its Live! brand — entertainment districts often anchored by hotels, casinos or sports complexes — and plans additional projects.

That will include opening three casinos in the next year, a business the company got into after launching Live!

In coming years and decades, Cordish said he expects continued expansion across hospitality platforms.

“I can guarantee there will be new divisions we are not in today,” Cordish said. “I wish I could tell you doing what, but we don’t know. It’s our history. We are not afraid to charge into something brand-new. “

The Live! brand expansion comes at a time when experts see a rosy outlook for “non-merchant” tenant categories, a boost to a retail market plagued with chain store bankruptcies.

A forecast of commercial real estate trends in 2025 shows retail vacancies at or near 20-year-lows in most U.S. markets because of resurgent demand after the pandemic. Increasingly, demand has come from new experience-focused concepts, such as pickleball and competitive socializing.

Experiential concepts could drive as much as 15 million square feet of occupancy growth through the end of the year, an October report by PwC and Urban Land Institute said. But, it warned, such expansion also comes with risks.

“These concepts open to a lot of fanfare and consumer interest, but the jury is out as to how long some can maintain momentum and relevancy, especially if their locations don’t benefit from strong tourism trade,” the report said.

‘No one is going to outwork us’

Cordish, whose three sons and stepson head the company’s Live! casino, real estate development and private equity divisions, argues the tenant-owned business model has helped propel the company’s growth.

It eased the way for expansion into gaming, with projects such as Maryland Live! Casino & Hotel in Hanover and a Pompano Beach, Florida, resort planned with Caesars Entertainment. It’s led to copyrights for exclusive use of the name in entertainment districts, casinos and hotels.

Since launching Live! in Baltimore, Cordish Cos. has developed and still owns dozens of branded projects, which the company says drew a record 60 million visitors last year. The company is behind Kansas City Live! and Bally Sports Live! at Ballpark Village in St. Louis. Entertainment projects typically contain a mix of bars, restaurants, nightclubs, live music venues and other uses.

Cordish also attributes five generations of growth to a strong work ethic and no predetermined plan. His grandfather founded the firm in 1910 and one of his grandsons now works in data analytics in the casino division.

“Our guiding principle is no one is going to outwork us,” he said. “Each generation passes this ethic on to the next. The kids see their parents working, they work. There is no free lunch.”

New growth continues around sports partnerships

Earlier this month, Cordish announced plans for Miami Live!, an entertainment complex to open by early 2026 in partnership with the Miami Marlins around loanDepot Park stadium. Plans call for transforming the ballpark’s West Plaza into indoor and outdoor restaurants, entertainment uses and gathering space.

Ballclub officials said they selected the developer because of its reputation across the sports and entertainment landscape nationally and in South Florida.

The Miami project continues the company’s legacy of building sports-anchored, mixed-use projects in partnership with professional sports franchises and media companies, including the St. Louis Cardinals, Texas Rangers, Philadelphia Flyers, Comcast Spectacor, Bally Sports, NBC Sports and Sporting KC.

Franchise owners and cities have increasingly looked to draw fans year-round by anchoring stadiums with mixed-use developments that can include residential, retail and entertainment uses.

Cordish says that part of the business just “happened.” As franchise owners saw benefits of control by a developer with similar long-term goals, it spread, he said.

“We’ve been passed from one team to another,” said Cordish, who describes himself as a “sports lunatic” who nonetheless “was never smart enough to buy any of the teams.”

A 1960 Johns Hopkins University alumnus, Cordish played with three varsity lacrosse squads, including the 1959 national champions. He tends to hire former athletes, and he plays tennis twice a week.

Prior to running its own establishments and casinos, the developer typically leased to third party tenants. But being a landlord could be frustrating, Cordish said.

“You want a certain use, and you can’t find a third party tenant that will do it,” he said. “You want a jazz club, you want a dueling pianos concept, and you can’t find it. We just knew we needed to keep quality control, and we needed to be able to run things we couldn’t find.”

At Maryland Live!, for instance, The Cheesecake Factory is the only venue not owned and operated by Cordish Cos. It owns the Prime Rib restaurant there and at its Live! casino and hotels in Philadelphia and in Bossier City, Louisiana.

“We bought the name. We bought the menus, the recipes,” Cordish said, adding that it also uses the same vendors. “But it’s 100% our employees. We make the investment, we run it. If there’s a big profit, we make it.”

At Texas Live, a project built together with the Dallas Cowboys and the Texas Rangers, all 16 venues are Cordish-owned, though it may appear otherwise from names such as Lockhart Smokehouse, Rangers Republic bar, Guy Fieri’s Taco Joint and Troy’s, a live music and cocktails concept by Cowboys Hall of Famer, Troy Aikman.

A move into new markets

About five years ago, the Live! division, headed by Cordish’s son, Reed Cordish, began opening its concepts in non-company owned developments in cities without Live! districts, an idea it had long resisted. That spurred expansion of brands such as Sports & Social, a sports bar and restaurant with skeeball and games on big screens, and PBR, which Cordish Cos. licensed to create mechanical bull riding venues.

Just over a year ago, Cordish Cos. opened Nashville Live! in an area where a Christmas 2020 bombing destroyed several blocks in the city’s historic downtown, killing the bomber, injuring three people and forcing the closure of more than 60 businesses.

“We’ve been as a city rebuilding Second Avenue, home to some venues including Live!, and that has been a new draw into downtown,” said Jennifer Carlat, executive director of Urban Land Institute’s Nashville chapter. “It’s been a place where the city has taken an opportunity to recreate what public space looks like.”

Tom Turner, president and CEO of the Nashville Downtown Partnership, attributes the street’s rebirth and distinct identity as an entertainment and community hub to a public-private partnership that includes the new businesses.

“There is a return to live music and entertainment venues more generally,” that’s helping cities recover after COVID, Carlat said.

The Live! brands sometimes get a refresh or complete makeover. At Baltimore’s Power Plant Live! at Market Square, names such as Howl at the Moon and Bar Baltimore have been replaced by Angels Rock Bar, Mosaic Nightclub and Lounge, Luckies Tavern and Leinie Lodge & Beer Garden.

Years ago, escape rooms did not exist, but now at Charm City Clue Room, patrons are given an hour to solve puzzles that unlock rooms with themes such as U.S.S. Constellation, The Tell-Tale Heart and Gangster’s Gamble.

Still, tenants come and go. Power Plant Live! lost one of its better known venues at the end of last year after 20 years, the non-Cordish owned Rams Head Live concert hall. It also lost restaurant and live music venue Tin Roof last year. The company plans to eventually reopen the former Rams Head space for live music.

Despite its evolution, the Live! brand remains known and recognized.

“It is very well known, and it’s been here forever,” says Lisa Norris, executive director of ULI Baltimore, which honored Cordish in in 2012 for local development leadership. “Things in our city come and go. If you say Power Plant, if you say Harborplace or Harborpoint, there are a few things in our city that stand out, that is one of them.”

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