Reisterstown Faces Challenges on Main Street

Community members and business leaders say they want downtown Reisterstown to move forward. Carrying out that mission is the hard part.

The good news is that Baltimore County awarded the a $15,713 grant that the group will put toward benches, planters and trashcans on Main Street, RIA President Glenn Barnes said this week.

Four different styles of new banners, featuring Main Street’s clock tower, place settings, shopping bags and flowers, also will be hung up on Main Street, another aesthetic improvement lead by the RIA.

Main Street is a major focus for the group, which heard from business owners, residents and local officials at Monday morning in a meeting organized by Calvin Reter and the Rev. Tim Feaser of , both of whom are concerned about business closings on Main Street.

“I think the challenge is being able to support a community of retailers,” said , Reisterstown-Owings Mills-Glyndon Chamber of Commerce president. “We need to get people from driving 40 mph through Main Street to stopping on Main Street.”

Councilwoman Vicki Almond came to learn what her constituents had to say.

“I’m interested to hear what actual business people think they can do,” she said. Almond also mentioned she hopes to have the rest of Reisterstown included in her district during the county redistricting process.

Feaser and Reter met with the ROMG Chamber of Commerce's Zoning and Economic Development Committee last Wednesday to discuss Main Street.

Feaser said there is a concept that fits Reisterstown — “first suburbs” — meaning those communities that sprang up after World War II and grew exponentially in the late 50s and 60s.

“They were the American dream,” Feaser said.

These days, first suburbs are in a “policy blind spot,” he said, where problems aren’t being addressed. He sees vacant commercial and residential real estate, an aging and stagnant population and homeless people showing up at his church, he said.

Feaser said County Executive Kevin Kamenetz told him there is no money to fix the area’s aging infrastructure.

On a more optimistic note, Feaser said Reisterstown and other first suburbs have affordable housing and blossoming multicultural communities.

Other community members came bearing some good news as well.

owner Lauretta Nagel said a used bookstore will be opening where the New England Carriage house used to be.

will open on the corner of Main Street and Stocksdale Avenue in approximately six months, said Bruce Rice, Wawa’s regional real estate manager.

“I’m just interested in the community,” he said. “If they want to do some things to spark Reisterstown Road, we’d love to be a part of that.”

’ former owners, who were not at the meeting, announced the coffee shop will .

After exchanging ideas and discussing the challenges of attracting and retaining retailers, attendees left on an ambiguous note as to what, if any, is the call to action.

“I don’t know where we go from here,” Reter told the audience.