The sign outside 111 Hillsmere Drive still says Bay Ridge Wine & Spirits. The parking lot still fills up early for the twice-yearly Customer Appreciation sale, the one where everything in the store drops to wholesale price plus a dollar. Sam still runs the wine section. Cindy still manages the floor. None of that changed on February 20, 2026, the day Dave and Lisa Marberger sold the store their family built into the largest liquor retailer in Annapolis.
What actually changed sits about a mile down the same road: a fenced, overgrown 5.4 acres that has done nothing but collect complaints for roughly twenty years. That lot is now moving through Annapolis's annexation process toward becoming 39 townhomes, and the zoning decision that determines what gets built there is scheduled for discussion this fall.
The Sale That Looked Bigger Than It Was
Chuck Ferrar opened Bay Ridge Wine & Spirits in 1991, financed in part by a family loan, in a small space across from Quiet Waters Park. His son-in-law Dave Marberger joined the business three years later. In 2019, Ferrar stepped back from day-to-day operations and Marberger, along with his wife Lisa, Ferrar's daughter, took over as majority owners. Over three decades the store grew into a 14,000-square-foot building, large enough that Maryland's later cap limiting liquor stores to 10,000 square feet doesn't apply. Bay Ridge Wine & Spirits was already built out past that size before the rule took effect, so it was grandfathered in.
That's the store Bay Ridge has shopped at for more than thirty years. In February, the Marbergers sold it to new owner Seema Patel, who has said the store's staff and traditions, including the Customer Appreciation sales, will stay in place. As part of the transition, a Pappy Van Winkle bourbon auction, the kind collectors show up early for, raised $20,000 for the Boys & Girls Club of Annapolis & Anne Arundel County, continuing a charitable pattern the store has kept up for years. Marberger told Eye On Annapolis the sale let him focus on the family's other store on Kent Island while trusting the Annapolis location was in good hands.
"This move lets us keep our Kent Island business, take care of our team, and spend more time with our family while knowing the Annapolis store is in good hands," Marberger said.
For a story involving Bay Ridge's most recognizable retail name changing ownership, this is a remarkably uneventful one. The building isn't changing. The staff isn't changing. The two annual sales aren't changing. The only thing that moved was the name on the deed.
Down The Road, Two Decades Of Nothing Just Ended
The real disruption to Bay Ridge Road is happening on a parcel most residents have learned to ignore: a long-vacant lot south of Bay Ridge Road, across from the Giant Food Store at Bay Forest Shopping Center and next to a boat supply store and the Sunrise at Bay Village senior living facility. A company called GSX Solutions LLC filed a petition in July 2026 to annex the 5.4-acre site into the city. According to reporting from The Baltimore Banner, attorney Alan Hyatt told the city council the property has sat vacant for about 20 years, most recently through a Lidl grocery store proposal that fell through. The city's planning and zoning director, Chris Jakubiak, told the council the parcel is already identified in Annapolis's comprehensive plan as appropriate for annexation.
The concept plan has already shifted once. GSX originally proposed 49 townhomes. The Planning Commission indicated that was too dense, and the current plan reflects 39 units, with 15 percent set aside as moderately priced dwelling units. The applicant is requesting R3 zoning, which allows up to eight units per acre. If the annexation goes through, the parcel would become part of Ward 7, according to a city newsflash on the filing.
City Council voted unanimously in late July to send the petition to city staff and the Planning Commission for technical review. Hyatt expects the project back in front of council committees and the Planning Commission this fall. Alderman Rob Savidge, who represents the surrounding area, told the council the lot has been a steady source of resident complaints about trash, blight and appearance, and said he supported the redevelopment, calling himself "actually quite excited about it."
A Second Project With The Same Name Nearby
A few hundred yards from the annexation site, a separate project is further along. Bay Village Suites, a 105-unit independent living building planned for 960 Bay Ridge Road, the former site of Quantum Sails, cleared re-approval from the Annapolis Planning Commission in July 2026 and is now headed toward grading and building permits. It's the second phase of a senior living campus on Bay Ridge Road, following an assisted living and memory care building already completed at the same site. The project is a partnership between GSX Ventures, Reliable Contracting, and Sunrise Senior Living, which will manage the community once it opens.
Both projects along this stretch of road carry the GSX name, though the annexation filing and the senior living partnership are documented as separate undertakings with their own approvals and their own timelines. Whether they end up sharing more than a name isn't something the public record answers yet.
What Actually Shows Up On Bay Ridge Road This Fall
If Bay Ridge Road feels unchanged because the wine store still looks the way it always has, that's an accurate read of one address and a misleading read of the corridor. The retail anchor everyone recognized didn't move. The land around it did. Between now and the end of the year, Bay Ridge Road is carrying a zoning vote that will set the density template for a parcel that's frustrated neighbors for two decades, plus a senior living project already cleared for construction permits.
None of this touches the store at 111 Hillsmere Drive. The Customer Appreciation sale will run the way it always has. Sam will still be behind the wine counter. But the empty acreage that residents have driven past for twenty years without expecting anything to happen there is now the part of Bay Ridge Road with an actual calendar attached to it, and that calendar runs through this fall.
If you're tracking how a specific parcel's zoning history or annexation status might affect a property you own or are considering in Bay Ridge, that's exactly the kind of local detail worth a conversation before decisions get made at the county level. Annapolis Fine Property keeps an eye on filings like this one along Bay Ridge Road and is happy to walk through what they mean for a specific address.
