A Ripple or a Wave?

As Canal Park Transforms Frederick, Some Question the Speed of Change

Joe and Greta Elbert are happy with their new two-bedroom condominium overlooking the canal but resist the idea of chains such as Starbucks coming to downtown.

Water spilling over the banks of Carroll Creek 31 years ago flooded downtown Frederick waist-deep, sending residents scrambling for high ground -- and a permanent fix.

After years of bickering, brainstorming and financial barnstorming, city leaders recently cut the ribbon on a $65 million, double-deck flood-control project that sends most of the creek underground while giving the city a $20 million canal park.

Carroll Creek Park cuts a handsome swath through Frederick's 19th-century streetscape. Visitors and residents can stroll along a brick promenade accented with greenery, splashing fountains and waterfalls, artsy bridges, restaurants, and a 350-seat amphitheater. Inspired by San Antonio's 3.2-mile-long River Walk, Frederick's version measures three-quarters of a mile long. When completed in mid-2009, the city predicts, it will have generated more than 80 new businesses and $155 million in private investment and will draw 1.4 million visitors annually.

But as Carroll Creek Park sends out ripples of economic revitalization, some say Frederick is changing too much, too fast. Office buildings and parking decks are multiplying. Residential and commercial rents are rising. Long-term residents are leaving. As the economic tide pushes old faces out and draws new faces in, people are asking: Is quaint Frederick at risk of losing what makes it special?

The idea of downtown Frederick grappling with success would have prompted laughter three decades ago. The 1976 flood was bad enough, but in reality it only finished off the deterioration that had begun a decade earlier when Frederick Towne Mall opened nearby. Faced with dozens of boarded-up stores, city leaders designed Carroll Creek Park with hopes of hitting a public-works trifecta: control floodwaters, spur economic development and boost tourism.

Almost to a person, downtown's merchants and residents today give Carroll Creek Park high marks, but some wonder if Frederick's economic growth is sustainable and if the city might have better protected elderly and moderate-income people from revitalization's rough edges.

Joe Cohen, 68, sells British foods and cigars from a corner building on North Market Street. He links downtown's rising rents to two factors: real estate speculation and chain retailers. He said investors who snapped up downtown properties at peak values a few years ago have been pumping up rents ever since.

Consequently, some small businesses are struggling, including Cohen's.

He said his landlord paid $1.15 million for the building in 2005. But Cohen said he thinks the owner would be lucky to get $800,000 if he tried to sell.

Cohen's lease expires in two years. The building owner, he said, wants to raise the rent to six times what he is paying now, first from about $1,000 a month to $3,000 a month, then to about $6,000 a month in 2010. Cohen said he is considering relocating to a strip mall.

He said the influx of chains and franchises could create market conditions that are particularly unfavorable to independent retailers nearing lease renewal.

Merchant Eric Krasner, owner of nostalgia-themed CineGraphic Studios, said he is worried about a related issue: accelerating growth altering downtown's historic flavor. "What's the point of driving to a downtown that looks like a mall if a real mall has air conditioning and free parking?" he asked.