The 37-story tower at 222 St. Paul Place, the former Embassy Suites looming over downtown Baltimore, has officially checked out of hotel life and into its next act as The Billie. Leasing materials show the building is now marketing studios and one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, with advertised rents roughly between $1,000 and $2,500 per month. The lobby is being pitched for retail tenants, and an amenity living room has been carved out of what used to be a hotel suite.
According to the Baltimore Business Journal, The Billie’s 37 stories are being repositioned as a full residential tower, with unit sizes and asking rents tracking with the ranges listed in leasing materials. The outlet also published images of a former suite reimagined as amenity space and notes that ground-floor lobby space is on the market for retail.
To pull off the switch from hotel to housing, Arctaris Impact Investors led a roughly $30 million Opportunity Zone equity investment to finance the conversion. The firm says the redevelopment will create about 300 apartments and serve as workforce housing in the heart of downtown. The GoodHomes project will supply much-needed accessible and affordable housing for the essential workforce employed in Baltimore's Central Business District, according to Arctaris.
Units, Rents and Retail
Leasing brochures show a spread of layouts from studios up to three-bedroom apartments, with listed rents spanning smaller entry-level studios through larger, family-sized units. The Baltimore Business Journal preview pegs the rent range at about $1,000 to $2,500 per month and spotlights amenity areas carved out of former hotel rooms. Landlord materials also identify the lobby as available retail space, hinting that residents could eventually have shops or services just downstairs.
Why This Matters for Downtown Housing
Since the pandemic, developers and investors in Baltimore have increasingly turned to hotel-to-apartment conversions as a quicker, often cheaper way to bring new housing online downtown. As Affordable Housing Finance reported, Arctaris and GoodHomes have branded this project as naturally affordable, with many units aimed at households earning up to 80% of the area median income. The property first opened as apartments in the 1960s before later operating as a hotel, a backstory that developers say makes the structure especially suited to residential reuse, according to Baltimore Fishbowl.
For now, leasing at The Billie is ramping up. The big questions on the horizon are how quickly the roughly 300 units get absorbed, which retailers decide to plant their flags in the lobby, and whether a fresh wave of residents can meaningfully boost daytime activity downtown. Arctaris and GoodHomes have cast the project as a key piece of a broader effort to repopulate the Central Business District, and the building’s lease-up over the coming months will serve as a very visible test of that strategy.
