Follow Up on Dowtown Retail Focus Group
They have rescheduled the meeting to the 23rd.
Based on the feedback received and the anticipated attendance, we have decided to reschedule the Residents Focus Group for Wednesday January 23rd, 6:30pm at City Hall in Room 212.
Again, our goal is to have a group of 10-12 City residents to participate in a focus group-format discussion on the retail mix within downtown Frederick. This will be followed in early February by a larger format Community Meeting, on a date still TBD. A final report with recommendations will then go to the Mayor and Board of Aldermen at a workshop in late February or early March.
We’ll be sure to keep everyone informed, and appreciate your assistance in keeping your neighbors informed as well. Thanks for your interest and hope to see you on January 23rd.
Best regards,
Heather Gramm
Heather Gramm, CEcD
Business Development Specialist
The City of Frederick Economic Development
101 N Court Street, Frederick, MD 21701
Phone 301-600-6362 or Fax 301-600-6363
Frederick: A Great American Business Destination
Fungusblogs
Frederick needs a great movie theatre, with neon lights, showing INDEPENDENT CINEMA, in its downtown….It will attrack intelligent people and leave the undesirables back home….The Weinberg center is a disgrace….It is ugly, has no connection to its history and its marquee should be removed and by public subscription be restored….Excellent neon companies can make any downtown street come to life…Look up Wagner Sign Co. to see what they have done in other cities….Rockland Maine, just restored it’s downtown Strand Theatre, neon and all, for independent cinema, AND ITS DRAWING CROWDS EVERY NIGHT….A small town at that….So has every theatre which has been restored for independent quality cinema…..Frederick needs a large WOOLWORTH TYPE OF STORE AS WELL, to attract locals to WALK into town to buy small items , without driving out to the hideous malls west of town….Most areas are building lifestyle centers which look great, but UNFORTUNATELY look at the garbage Frederick keeps throwing up…Hasn’t anyone travelled WITHIN the US in the past twenty five years?…Intelligent people are drawn to lifestyle centers, even if they are built in downtowns….Parking can be underground or on the roof…Look at WHAT WEST HARTFORD HAS DONE RECENTLY…..Get out and travel within the US rather than holding a forum and inviting people who haven’t been more than fifty miles from Frederick except for a trip to Disney………Frederick’s streets are empty during the day……If you want people, build several new hotels in the downtown, not on the freeway…..Put shopping, cinema, theatre around it and it will thrive….Doesn’t anyone in town have any business sense…….Everything is put onto the hideous strips and then everyone cries the downtown is dying…..No downtown improvement has worked in anytown because nobody wants to invite the major retailers in…..Retail is the lifeblood of a downtown, not antiques or bail bonds…..Frederick is a sad place, with trees planted to hide the abandoned second stories of the half empty buildings….FREDERICK IS TERMINAL, and ironically nobody understands how to revive it…..forums, downtown main street improvement districts etc..do nothing…..go out and invite retail , hotels, cinemas in and provide parking underground or on top…..it costs money, and muni bonds can be floated for improvements which will rapidly increase the value of the property and tax revenues will rise……If you ask anyone at the mall where they would PREFER TO GO ,if a car can be parked, they would prefer a downtown…..If parking cannot be provided along the downtown streets, a large parking lot ,connected by a trolley, going around the downtown and then to the parking lot would make it perfect……It’s the rage in europe now….Again, a bond would be the way for financing such COMPLICATED PROJECTS…..Of course, its impact on the environment would be studied for years to see if an electric vehicle, would be able to operate…..Frederick was one of the last places to actually use a streetcar, up to the college and on to Thurmont…..These cars could be rebuilt by Gomaco and used to funnel people around and out to parking………..It is not very creative, but it works……