The friendly faces, lively spaces and sense of community in Downtown Frederick make it much more than a destination – it’s our home. We’re fortunate to live in a community full of great people, focused on making each day better than the last. Downtown Frederick Partnership is focused on improving quality of life downtown. Each year, the Partnership tackles strategic initiatives to make living downtown easier and better.
By choosing to live here, our residents are a key part of keeping our city’s historic buildings great. Whether you’re a home owner, renter, business owner or simply someone who loves Downtown Frederick, you understand that this city’s wealth of historic buildings is what sets our community apart. To help answer some of the most common questions about making building changes in the historic district, the City of Frederick Historic Preservation staff planners and Downtown Frederick Partnership created a series of general guides for residents, merchants and contractors who live and work here to help guide these groups through the process of improving our historic buildings.
The Partnership is committed to reimagining and advancing our community to welcome more residents to our downtown. Over the course of the last 30 years, the organization has worked on projects that include:
- Live Downtown Frederick Housing Symposium: Launched in 2017, the Live Downtown Frederick Housing Symposium featured a report on the processes to develop housing in Downtown Frederick, reviewing the incentives and impediments to the process. In 2019, the Partnership welcomed Anirban Basu, who spoke in a larger economic context and addressed how smaller downtowns are being impacted by residential trends, changes that are happening in cities that are similar to Downtown Frederick, who wants to live in downtown and how this impacts the type of housing units offered and the economic impact of downtown residents
- The Redevelopment of the Post Office Site: Downtown Frederick Partnership is committed to advocating for the redevelopment of the Post Office site. Redevelopment would include retaining the retail post office either on site or in close proximity and relocating the remaining uses. The redevelopment would bring a new anchor attraction to Downtown Frederick and would likely include a mix of residential, retail and/or office. This development would help improve pedestrian traffic along East and Patrick Streets, and help better integrate the shopping districts of Downtown Frederick.
- Bring a Broom Saturday: Launched in 2012, Bring a Broom Saturday is the Partnership’s annual clean up event in Downtown Frederick. The Partnership organizes and cleans with many residents, volunteers and businesses throughout Downtown Frederick. Each year, the event has grown in volunteer power and impact to provide clean streets to our downtown community. This event included nearly 500 hardworking volunteers in 2019.
- Beginning in 2018, the Partnership heard from many residents concerned about reducing litter in Downtown Frederick. The Partnership met with Neighborhood Advisory Council 11 (NAC 11) representatives to discuss and explore various ways to reduce litter in Downtown Frederick. To date, efforts have included adding 40 new cigarette butt catchers resulting in the collection of 120,000 cigarette butts, adding new trash receptacles both through grant funding and City support and achieving grant funding to purchase brooms and dust bins for 40 merchants. The Partnership also was a lead advocate for the City starting a Downtown Frederick commercial recycling program in 2010 that still is in place today.
- Seventh Street Fountain Park: Since 2013, the Partnership has been working to update the Seventh Street Fountain Park, to improve the space from both a safety and usability perspective. Since 2019, the Ausherman Family Foundation and the Partnership have worked with the architect consultant to update the concept plan to reflect input from community members and City staff. Next steps for the project include: beginning the historic preservation approval process, developing construction documents and establishing the final project budget. It is anticipated that additional fundraising efforts will be needed to complete all of the improvements envisioned for the park space.
- Increasing MARC Train Service: Downtown Frederick Partnership is committed to achieving increased MARC train service to Downtown Frederick, since helping advocate for the addition of the downtown station in 2004. As part of this policy, the Partnership supports building a new Point of Rocks Station platform to increase weekday MARC service to Downtown Frederick. The MARC Brunswick line provides service between Washington DC and Martinsburg WV at four stations in Frederick County: Brunswick, Point of Rocks, Monocacy and Downtown Frederick. With the new platform, the Point of Rocks station will experience improved service because all trains on the MARC Brunswick line will be able to stop at this station. Increased MARC Train Service would make Downtown Frederick a more attractive place to live and locate a business by increasing regional access. A new Point of Rocks Station platform also will permit MARC to maximize the effectiveness of their operations by providing more commuting options without adding trains.
To assist with these events and policy priorities, Downtown Frederick Partnership is fortunate to have the help of more than 500 volunteers who contribute their time to the organization. Over the last 30 years, the Partnership has grown and developed its volunteer base and annually provides more than 6,000 hours of volunteer service, which is valued at more than $152,000 to the downtown community. The Partnership is always looking to grow, strengthen and diversify this volunteer base to ensure we are representative of our community and its needs. In 2020, the Partnership is working with our community partners to do just that – bring in more voices and faces that make Frederick so unique. If you want to get involved, send us an email at mainstreet@downtownfrederick.org.