It was late March when M.J. "Jay" Brodie, Baltimore's chief economic developer, sat down for a bottle of wine and a dinner of blackened catfish at McCormick & Schmick's downtown to talk about hotels with one of the nation's most successful black businessmen.
Brodie had dined with a lot of local developers in the past six years as he searched for a partner on a large convention hotel, which he believed the city sorely needed. The pivotal meal was orchestrated by Cathy Hughes, one of the city's most prominent businesswomen and a friend of Robert L. Johnson, founder and chief executive of Black Entertainment Television.
"She said, 'Bob, you've got to come to Baltimore to meet this guy Jay Brodie,'" Johnson recalled of a phone call from Hughes. "'He's really committed to urban development; he's really committed to minority participation in development. And Baltimore is a great city. You've got to come over here.'"
Johnson was hooked.
Yesterday, Brodie watched Johnson join with Robert M. Gladstone, president of Quadrangle Development Corp., and a host of dignitaries at City Hall to announce that they had a solid proposal for a Hilton hotel on what is now a parking lot north of Camden Yards and west of the Baltimore Convention Center.
The hotel faces major hurdles and is at least a year or two from a groundbreaking, but the always cautious Brodie allowed himself to be a bit optimistic.
"I've had lots of conversations with lots of different people," Brodie said after the announcement. "You're never really sure about how it went. It's not like you're building a Starbucks."
The dinner with Johnson, he said, was a turning point for the hotel.
He also credits Hughes, the founder of Radio One Inc., the nation's largest radio broadcaster targeting black listeners, with the introduction.
Hughes sits on the board of Brodie's Baltimore Development Corp. During a meeting earlier in the year, she had listened to Brodie praise Johnson for buying the 205-room Courtyard by Marriott at the Inner Harbor -- what Brodie said was a $26 million investment in Baltimore.
Hughes had long been seeking ways to include more minority- and women-owned businesses in development. She had known Johnson for 30 years, and it suddenly occurred to her that he could build a convention hotel.
Former Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke had put Hughes on the city's development board, and he told her she would one day advance the cause of African-Americans and development in the city.
"I didn't understand [Schmoke's comments] then, but I do now," said Hughes. "I was the one to ask Bob to sit down with Jay Brodie and talk about a convention hotel."
She set up the dinner for Johnson, Brodie, herself and two top officials from RLJ Development LLC, Johnson's Bethesda-based development company.
"It was as if we had a rehearsed script," Hughes said in a telephone interview, recalling the dinner. She could not attend yesterday's news conference because she was traveling.
"Everything I had told Bob, Jay Brodie was verifying and showing him the documentation on. ... Bob is known for his short meetings, but we were at dinner for hours."
At the table, Brodie talked about how the future of the city hinged on a handful of things, one of them tourism. He also said the city was willing to help pay for the hotel, which could cost $250 million.
He spoke of two city-owned parcels next to the Convention Center, once pursued by Orioles owner and businessman Peter G. Angelos for a possible hotel.
Johnson said yesterday that he "liked the way everyone shares in the economic pie" in Baltimore. He was looking for other investments in addition to his Marriott, so he offered to pay for a study of the market for a hotel project of 750 to more than 1,000 rooms. It could be Baltimore's largest hotel.
But RLJ was set up to buy existing hotels and other properties. RLJ owns $250 million in real estate, Johnson said.
He would need a more experienced development partner. Johnson turned to Gladstone, chairman of Quadrangle, a Washington-based real estate developer.
Brodie, a longtime friend, had persuaded Gladstone to visit Baltimore several years ago, and steered him toward considering development of an apartment project on the west side. Gladstone had recently asked Johnson to join him as a partner on that project.
"Johnson asked us to join this [hotel] project, and just as they jumped when we asked them to join that [apartment] project, we jumped at this one," Gladstone said. "This is not going to be an easy project. If it was, it would have been done a long time ago by someone else."
The union was formed, but one more problem had to be resolved.
Catholic Relief Services, the international relief arm of the U.S. Roman Catholic Church, also was looking at the proposed hotel site for its new headquarters. The organization had announced in April that it would leave downtown for Catonsville, but officials reconsidered after a meeting at City Hall with Mayor Martin O'Malley and Brodie.
Brodie, an architect by training, moved all the potential pieces around -- Catholic Relief's 200,000-square-foot building to the west, the 750-room hotel to the east. He left room for a possible maglev high-speed train station and a 250-room hotel expansion. Parking would go underground.
"The whole world knew we wanted a hotel on that site," said Brodie, adding he would have had to reject Catholic Relief, and possibly its 350 jobs, if the layout could not accommodate another building.
But the pieces fit. Brodie pointed Kenneth F. Hackett, Catholic Relief's executive director, to the developers.
Hackett said he is pleased with the high-profile headquarters site near the Inner Harbor, which would accommodate 600 workers. It will be built separately so it can open by July 2005 if the uncertain economy or other factors kill the hotel deal.
Brodie said the developers sent a proposal several inches thick to him about a month ago.
Because the property is city-owned, he will seek proposals during the next 60 days from other developers before committing to Johnson and Gladstone.
The proposal seems as if it would work, he said, but he would not give odds because too many factors are beyond his control. "I'll say what I always say," he said. "I'll believe it when I see it. I'd like to see it."
Sun staff writer Scott Calvert contributed to this article.