There were no shovels or TV cameras. No ceremonial ribbon or oversized scissors. No executives in business suits shaking hands with onlookers, no parade of politicians lining up to take credit.

There was only the thrum of excavators and bulldozers pushing huge mounds of dirt around a forgotten and heavily polluted corner of South Baltimore, preparing the land for something exceedingly rare in the city — a new factory.

A Greek-based company called Hellenic Cables has already purchased the land, financed the development costs, and started site work on a cable manufacturing facility expected to employ 120 people in an industrial area known as Wagner’s Point.

When the wind blows on Wagner’s Point, the scent from the nearby wastewater treatment plant wafts over, emitting the faint smell of poop. But it’s that wind that carries so much promise for Hellenic Cables and the Baltimore region.

The offshore wind industry is what originally lured Hellenic Cables to the U.S. Special undersea cables are needed to carry electricity from wind turbines to the shore. While that industry has faced years of setbacks and now faces an uncertain future under President Trump, Hellenic Cables is taking the long view and plowing ahead with its factory.

Hellenic Cables and its parent company did not respond to numerous requests for comment, but public records filed in the U.S. and Europe offer a glimpse of its plans here.

If the offshore wind industry takes off, financial disclosures show that Hellenic Cables plans to expand its factory and more than double its workforce in Baltimore. Though turbines have yet to be erected off the Maryland shore, observers think the industry has big potential here.

Wind offers a limitless resource in the shallow waters off the East Coast. It blows so strong and with such consistency there that many experts believe it could power huge swaths of the eastern seaboard.

Maryland has set a nonbinding goal to develop a massive 8.5 gigawatts-worth of windfarms in its waters by 2031, a volume that would account for more than a quarter of the entire country’s offshore wind goals.

Erecting these skyscraper-sized towers in the ocean will require manpower, not to mention steel and specialized infrastructure like the pilings and undersea cables needed to channel electricity — adjacent industries that could end up clustered in the Baltimore region.

The Port of Baltimore has easy access to proposed wind farms off the mid-Atlantic coast. A planned farm by U.S. Wind off the coast of Ocean City already has a contract with Hellenic to manufacture the necessary undersea cables.

Like U.S. Wind, which is part of an Italian company, Hellenic Cables is a subsidiary of a much larger European company, Cenergy. Cenergy is a holding company based in Belgium, which is controlled by a family in Greece.

Records show Hellenic Cables initially approached Tradepoint Atlantic about establishing a cablefactory at Sparrows Point, where other offshore wind companies have proposed building factories. Tradepoint Atlantic offers build-ready sites with infrastructure already in place to rent.

Instead, Hellenic Cables opted to buy its own land at Wagner’s Point, spending nearly $30 million for two parcels covering 38 acres.

The initial phase of construction and development is expected to cost $200 million, and Hellenic Cables already has the money on hand. In October, financial disclosures show the company sold a new offering of stocks to investors in Europe, raising the remaining $170 million for its factory in Baltimore.

Still, Hellenic Cables is building its factory in a heavily industrialized quarter of South Baltimore, where residents already live next to a massive coal export terminal and near a medical waste incinerator, a landfill, chemical companies and a steady stream of diesel truck traffic.

When Hellenic officials showed up to a community association meeting in Curtis Bay months ago, residents told them that they weren’t necessarily opposed to the new factory.

But Greg Sawtell, a board member with the Community of Curtis Bay Association, said residents also made clear that they expect the company to make certain commitments to their neighborhood.

Sure, the factory is promising to develop green tech, a far cry from the open-air coal piles or troubled medical waste incinerator the community have been fighting. But that doesn’t mean the development will be good for the neighborhood, Sawtell said.

He remembered that the meeting seemed to go well enough, and Hellenic’s representatives didn’t shut down the idea of entering a community benefits agreement, which could include commitments for things like local hiring, establishing a relationship with the nearby Benjamin Franklin High School, or even a fee structure that would share a portion of corporate revenues with the community.

Afterwards, though, Sawtell said Hellenic’s communication with the neighborhood dropped off.

If people outside of Curtis Bay have heard of the proposed factory, it’s likely from a press release issued in July from the Maryland Department of Commerce.

At the site itself, there’s little indication of what’s coming. During a visit in November, an engineering supervisor said he was not authorized to speak to the media and that he would pass on the request to his boss. His boss never responded.

Neither did Dimitris Kolaitis, who describes himself on LinkedIn as the Maryland-based “Chief Business Development Officer at Hellenic Cables.” While Kolaitis and Hellenic Cables have kept a low profile in Baltimore, they have been in active in Annapolis.

A LinkedIn post from U.S. Wind shows Kolaitis at a bill signing in Annapolis this spring. That law, HB 1296, modified the regulations on developing offshore wind farms.

Like other companies hoping turn offshore wind into a profitable industry, Hellenic has spent a sizable amount of money lobbying politicians. The firm hired Johnny Olszewski Sr., a former politician whose son recently stepped down as Baltimore County executive after winning election to Congress.

Since February 2023, Hellenic Cables has paid Johnny Olszewski Sr. $210,000 to lobby lawmakers in Annapolis and $94,000 to lobby officials in Baltimore, according to public records.

As a former industrial site within an economically depressed area, the factory could be eligible for multiple property tax breaks, but it has not applied for any yet, according to the Baltimore Department of Finance.

Hellenic’s parent company received a $58 million tax credit from the federal government as part of a program meant to spur investment in new energy projects, but it’s unclear if that credit could apply to the Baltimore factory’s first phase of development.

The Baltimore Development Corp. helped Hellenic Cables apply for a different federal infrastructure grant worth up to tens of millions of dollars, according to BDC president and CEO Colin Tarbert, but the feds did not select the project in its latest funding round this fall.

While the 120 jobs planned at the factory would be a win for the city, it represents a tiny fraction of past manufacturing jobs.

Since its industrial heyday, Baltimore has lost close to 90% of its factory jobs, bottoming out over the last decade at around 11,000 positions, said Mac McComas, a senior program manager with the 21st Century Cities Initiative at Johns Hopkins University. The Baltimore region now has fewer manufacturing jobs per capita than most urban areas in the country.

Cities often trip over themselves to hand out big tax breaks to attract investments like the Hellenic factory, McComas said. But in this case, the Greek company seems to have come to Baltimore because it saw a real advantage in positioning itself at the Chesapeake port.

McComas said that if there’s any lesson to draw, it’s that Baltimore doesn’t have to work so hard to attract factory jobs. There may be a big opportunity for Baltimore to play a supporting role if offshore wind starts to boom on the East Coast.

“If this one gets established and starts doing good business, then that could signal to others that Baltimore is kind of the place to do this,” he said.