EASTON, MARYLAND — In May it was reported that Bluepoint Living, owned by Paul Prager, agreed to buy the UM Shore Medical Center campus at 219 S. Washington St. The sale closes only after the hospital moves to Longwoods Road in 2028.

CBRE, which arranged the deal, puts the site at 14.84 acres and about 390,000 square feet, with buildings dating to 1915. The purchase price has not been disclosed.

Prager also owns Bluepoint Hospitality, which operates dining, retail and entertainment properties in town — among them Bas Rouge, The Stewart, the Wardroom, Washington Street Pub, Flying Cloud Booksellers and the Prager Family Center for the Arts — with headquarters on Federal Street. Those are two named entities under the same owner. They are not the same company.

Why the timing matters for the permit trail. The town's public design charrette concluded in April, before the buyer was reported. Consultant Seth Harry presented two concepts — one at roughly 135 to 175 units, another at 145 to 185 units with Biery Street angled toward Brookletts Avenue. That process was conducted as though the eventual developer were unknown.

The developer is now substantially known, and it is not a stranger to downtown Easton. The framework Easton writes this fall for its largest redevelopment parcel will govern a party that already controls much of the retail spine the parcel connects to. That is a reason for the zoning to be written with unusual care, and in public.

At the other end of the same project, UM Shore Regional Health has asked the state to raise the replacement hospital’s budget from the $539.6 million the Health Care Commission approved in 2024 to about $664 million, citing increased construction costs for materials and labor. The exterior of the new hospital was targeted for completion by the end of 2026.