A&R Development

A&R Development is a Baltimore real estate developer, owner and investor founded in 1977 and based at 1040 Park Avenue in the city’s Mount Vernon district. The firm works mainly in urban centres on public-private partnerships, transit-oriented master plans, affordable and mixed-income housing and mixed-use redevelopment, handling financing, entitlement and community coordination alongside construction. By its own account it has completed more than fifty projects worth over 900 million dollars. Baltimore work includes Canton Square and the Lockwood Garage development. A&R is co-developer with Preservation of Affordable Housing on the Barry Farm-Hillsdale redevelopment in Southeast Washington, DC, rebuilding a demolished public housing site as a mixed-income neighbourhood.

The firm publishes four numbers that frame nearly five decades of work: more than 50 projects developed, over 7,800 housing units created, more than 500,000 square feet of commercial space, and over $900 million in construction value.

The housing figure is the one that stands out against the commercial one. At roughly 7,800 units to half a million commercial square feet, this is a residential developer with a commercial component rather than the reverse — which is consistent with a portfolio weighted towards affordable, mixed-income and transit-oriented housing in dense urban cores.

Theo C. Rodgers founded A&R in 1977 and remains chairman, chief executive and co-owner. Before starting the firm he worked at General Motors and Dow Corning and served as vice president of H.G. Parks Inc., the first Black-owned and Black-operated publicly traded company in the United States. He holds a mechanical engineering degree from Tennessee State University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, and serves as a trustee of the Johns Hopkins Health System and the University of Maryland Baltimore Foundation.

Marjorie Rodgers Cheshire is principal and co-owner and formerly the firm’s president and chief operating officer, arriving from senior roles at the NFL, Oxygen Media and ESPN. She is a board director of PNC Financial Services Group and Exelon.

The firm states its founding belief as equitable entrepreneurship building sustainable communities, and the work follows from a stated view that developing in the heart of large cities turns on risk management, capital allocation and reading the local political landscape.