Shiny New Wegmans to Reflect on Reisterstown

Inside a gloomy, vacant factory on Reisterstown Road, a group of local political and business officials gathered to envision something very different for the .

What they heard was that Owings Mills will for the first time have a "focal point" featuring a Wegmans, retailers, restaurants and offices where the abandoned factory now sits

But there's more to this reflection on a proposed future.

Fewer than five miles north on Reisterstown Road, are progressing in fits and starts on Main Street in Reisterstown. A bit farther south a vacant gas station sits next to a , demonstrating the inconsistency of development in the area.

But if developers’ and a local economist’s predictions are true, the entire area stands to be economically uplifted by development in Owings Mills, Foundry Row in particular.

“This is a market expander, and Main Street wants the market expanded,” said Anirban Basu, CEO of economic consulting firm Sage Policy Group.

Wegmans will attract foot traffic with spending power, which will benefit the surrounding areas, Basu said. With Stevenson University expanding, the proposed revamp of the Owings Mills Mall and the transit-oriented Metro Centre, there is a lot of spending power that could spill into Reisterstown.

Main Street business owners and officials that development in Owings Mills could only be good for Reisterstown.

“I think when you see a vibrant community like I’m hoping this is going to be, you’re going to attract more life, more people. It will be a destination area,” Baltimore County Council Chairwoman Vicki Almond said in October. “What I’m hoping is that this is going to spill over to the Reisterstown Main Street.”

Business owners on Main Street are excited for the competition and the jobs it will bring to the area.

The Wegmans effect may also be felt about 10 miles to the east from Reisterstown in Hunt Valley, where a Wegmans opened in 2005 to much fanfare.

Brian Gibbons, CEO of Foundry Row developer Greenberg Gibbons, said Wegmans’ market study determined that opening in Owings Mills will reduce sales at its Hunt Valley store by 20 percent. But that’s okay, Gibbons said.

“They have such a high volume there that they needed to relieve that store,” he said. “…If they get too much volume, they can’t provide the service they want to provide.”

That 20 percent comes mostly from residents in the valley, which stretches across the back roads of Reisterstown, Owings Mills, Cockeysville and beyond.

“They’re not going to have to travel across the entire valley to get to Wegmans,” Gibbons said. “It’s going to split the valley market.”