Faced with financial constraints from many directions, Under Armour recently revealed plans to “reimagine” the development of its waterfront land in South Baltimore’s Port Covington as a global headquarters by 2025. This reimagination “for a post-COVID environment” will downsize its global corporate and Americas regional functions into one location with a hybrid office/home workplace model.

As part of the revised plan, all 1700 Baltimore-based employees will be consolidated into a five-story, 284,000-square-foot office building at its 50-acre Port Covington property. The company’s headquarters is currently at Tide Point in Locust Point. It also has a 170,000-square-foot office at its Port Covington property and leases space at the City Garage in Port Covington.

The campus will include an NCAA-regulation track and field facility, a multi-sport playing field and basketball courts to serve primarily as a testing ground for Under Armour’s product development and sports marketing. Seating will be available for 1400 spectators. Managed by Under Armour, the athletic facility will be available to Under Armour employees and the Baltimore community through shared-use agreements and special events.

“Under Armour’s global headquarters at Port Covington will become the primary home to our Americas business and our core global functions,” Patrik Frisk, CEO and president of Under Armour, said in a recent statement. “The campus will represent the future of performance grounded in innovation that embodies the ethos we live, breathe and sweat as a team every single.”

The transition to Port Covington will reportedly happen in three phases.

• The first phase is for UA LightHouse, currently at City Garage, to relocate to Building 37 in mid-2022.
• The second will be the construction of the track and field facility with a multi-sport playing field on land east of Building 37.
• Under Armour will unveil detailed plans for its new office building in late 2021 or early 2022 with a targeted opening of the first quarter of 2024. With office spaces that are designed for collaboration to support more of a hybrid workplace mode, it will also have a 30,000-square-foot Under Armour store.

Under Armour first announced plans to build a new campus at the former Port Covington Shopping Center in 2016 when it acquired the 50-acre site. The latest plan is scaled down from its initial master plan that called for four million-square feet of new buildings in part reflecting a shift to a hybrid home/office working model.

A portion of the company’s workforce will work on campus regularly, a portion will work remotely and a portion will work in a hybrid model. The downsized headquarters plan also comes as Under Armour has focused on reducing its overhead to adjust to slower growth.