This is the official introduction of the Vision Plan & Toolkit and your opportunity to review this document, which incorporates comments from past community meetings, and offer feedback to the East Frederick Rising Board of Directors and Design Committee before it is presented to the Planning Commission and Mayor & Board of Aldermen.

Frederick has a new gateway to the heart of the existing downtown and a new chance to envision the future of the City east of East Street.
We want you to be a stakeholder in this effort.
Go to ACTION SECTION of this website and Download Our Vision and Tool Kit for the East Side >>

Across town, the 38-year-old Fredericktowne Mall is facing a similar dilemma, but the problem isn’t location, it’s age.

Huge indoor malls have been out of favor with shoppers and retailers for the last decade. Store owners are returning to the town-center style of malls where the storefronts face the outside, similar to outlet malls in Gettysburg, Leesburg and Hagerstown.

The future of the west end of town depends on revamping the outdated corridor, including the mall. On the east side, the challenge is to retain a sense of the history, but rid the area of some of the industries themselves to remake it into something worthy of a gateway into the city.

Read the rest of this Gazette article >>

East Frederick Rising is a community organization whose goal is to develop several hundred acres near the new interchange at I-70 and East Street. The goal is to develop a mix of land uses that promotes ease of travel by transit, bicycle and pedestrian traffic.

The Department of Housing and Community Development is offering a $25,000 technical assistance grant for the project. It requires a local match…”

Read the rest of this Frederick News-Post article >>

The Thursday meeting sought input on developing 1,800 acres from East Street to the Monocacy River. The project seeks to develop the city’s east side on par with downtown Frederick .

The vision for the project is to develop, through community involvement, the east end of the city by creating a vibrant, safe and diverse environment where residential and commercial growth expands in accordance with smart growth principles.

Read more of this Frederick News-Post article >>

The program will include presentations, followed by break-out groups. We’ll be collecting and documenting public input, which will be used to help plan development on the east side of Frederick.

If you think you might attend, please RSVP to Rebecca Rush at info@eastfrederickrising.org.

Ron Young, President said, “There is a major change on the horizon. By the end of 2009, a new freeway ramp will be opened into the East Street Corridor of Frederick City. We are optimistic that this new transportation feature can become a catalyst for the Second Renaissance of Frederick.”

“One of East Frederick Rising’s goals includes being a voice and ombudsmen for East Side members/stakeholders in respect to community planning and growth. As Frederick City is completing its Comprehensive Plan this year, the organization is helping stakeholders weigh-in on planning elements such as zoning, permitting, infrastructure, development practices, transportation, environmental sustainability and smart growth considerations. We need public input now.”

The approximate 1100 acres that has been treated like the ‘wrong side of the tracks’ will now be vulnerable to what has been the norm — bottom-line, super-sized, disjointed development…unless the community comes together and creates a common vision that includes green buildings, mixed-use, mixed-income, walkable alternatives with most of the development in the hands of small and medium sized local businesses and individuals–like the old city was built prior to WWII and the depression.

Frederick is poised to be the beacon for reinventing a community and vitalization that complements the areas that should be left natural and rural, and takes pressure off places that don’t need or want density and intensity or extra, expensive infrastructure costs.

We have been joined in and supported in this effort by the City of Frederick – specifically the Mayor’s Office, the Planning Department, and the City and County Economic Development Departments — to coordinate the visioning and planning of the sector plan in coordination with the Comprehensive Plan which is currently under revision. We have already met with the primary property owners on April 24, 2009, and on Thursday, June 11 we had a very successful larger meeting with a broad range of citizens. These meetings were not an end all — be all, but just the kick-off of this grand continuing conversation which will always be posted here and disseminate wherever Fredericktonians gather or just bump into each other, since this is such a pertinent subject.

Our purpose is to be truly inclusive, transparent and involve all those that are interested, so we have true stakeholders in this venture where the best ideas come from anywhere and everyone based on a continuing community conversation.

The east side of Frederick should become the major receiving area for many who come to Frederick because of its economic, natural and cultural assets. And our aim is to accommodate people in a way that enhances rather than destroys those very things that are attracting them in the first place.

Alan Feinberg, RA, AICP