Former city planning director and onetime mayoral candidate Otis Rolley will be named CEO and president of the Baltimore Development Corporation (BDC) today, The Brew has learned.

As first reported by this publication in February, Mayor Brandon Scott and his senior advisors actively pushed for Rolley’s appointment to the influential role of leading the city’s economic development arm.
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UPDATE: The mayor confirmed in a press release this morning that BDC’s board of directors has chosen Rolley for the job.

“I can’t think of a better person to champion Baltimore’s renaissance, attract domestic and global investments, and create opportunities for residents in every neighborhood,” Scott said in the release.

“Otis Rolley brings the unparalleled combination of deep Baltimore roots and a far-reaching national perspective, which made him the unanimous choice to lead BDC into its next chapter,” said Augie Chiasera, BDC board chair and executive vice president at M&T Bank.
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The position opened up after Colin Tarbert, CEO since 2019, announced he was stepping down to pursue other lines of work.

Tarbert has accepted a job as CEO of the Downtown Investment Authority (DIA) in Jacksonville, Florida.

As BDC chief, Rolley will inherit a wide range of economic projects and financing activities, including overseeing the proposed Harborplace office-apartment complex, revitalization of downtown’s West Side, salvaging the long-dormant “Superblock” along Howard and Lexington streets, and redeveloping city-owned industrial property.

The semi-independent agency also was tasked with finding a new operator for the Baltimore Farmers’ Market following the mayor’s feud with the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts.

Past Positions

Becoming a deputy housing commissioner in 2000 at the age of 25, Rolley advanced to director of the planning department under then-Mayor Martin O’Malley, serving in that position from 2003 to 2007.

He later took a job as chief of staff to Mayor Sheila Dixon, resigning after 10 months to become CEO of the Central Maryland Transportation Alliance. He then ran for mayor, losing to Stephanie Rawlings-Blake in the 2011 Democratic primary.

Since then, Rolley has taken on numerous jobs.

He was the president and CEO of the Newark Community Economic Development Corporation, head of the Equity and Economic Opportunity initiative at The Rockefeller Foundation and, most recently, chief of enterprise philanthropy at Wells Fargo and the Wells Fargo Foundation.

Rolley moved back to Baltimore in 2022, buying a townhouse near Federal Hill.

Sources told The Brew he had been under consideration to replace Sean Davis, who stepped down as Baltimore Planning Commission chairman last year, but Jon Laria, lobbyist-lawyer for Port Covington, Harbor East and MCB Real Estate, ultimately got the job.