A Ripple or a Wave?

Griffin acknowledged that some people have worries but said they need to be kept in perspective. Before Carroll Creek Park, he said, the area was a vulnerable flood plain covered with ramshackle buildings and industrial clutter. The choice was simple: Move forward, or watch Frederick's heritage disintegrate. Griffin said armchair quarterbacking is easy, but cities across the nation have expressed keen interest in having their own Carroll Creek Park.

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Greg Gallaspy, executive director of San Antonio's River Walk association, Paseo Del Rio, sees national chains or "formula restaurants," such as Starbucks, as vital to any successful downtown revitalization. Building an award-winning canal park is tough enough, he said, but that pales next to financially sustaining it over the long term. A downtown that offers some brand-name stores is more likely to succeed, he said. Frederick's leaders, he said, are "on the right track."

Many merchants couldn't be more pleased about Carroll Creek Park. Patrick Spahr, owner of Ten Thousand Joys, an Eastern-inspired gift store, is bullish on the city. Carroll Creek Park is "a beautiful, beautiful project," he said. "Downtown Frederick is having a wonderful revitalization right now."

Spahr said he believes downtown is popular because it has everything suburban shopping malls lack: picturesque architecture, a colorful history, tree-lined streets, one-of-a-kind shops, a down-home feel, enough international eateries to draw comparisons with Bethesda's Restaurant Row -- and now the park.

One undisputed casualty of revitalization is Frederick's African American core. The Rev. Burton Mack, pastor of Asbury United Methodist Church, has seen the surrounding neighborhood quickly transition from "a center of African American community life" to a gentrified neighborhood of "transients." Some residents sold their homes for a healthy profit, he said. Others left because young professionals were pricing them out of the rental market. Mack said his church, founded in 1818, has a new goal: "just to stay afloat."

Resident Scott Grove, 48, is sensitive to the dislocation but said many downtown residents are neither transient nor affluent. Like his neighbors, Grove purchased a rundown house on the city's blighted south side in the 1980s and invested gallons of "sweat equity" into its rehab. He credits homeownership and Carroll Creek Park with transforming a "demilitarized zone" into a fashionable neighborhood.

"My heart really does go out to families who have rented" and are now gone, he said. Small houses that today command more than $200,000 "just 10 years ago could have been bought for as low as $50,000."

Back on store-lined East Patrick Street, Spahr is looking to a bright future. "I locked in my lease for 10 years," he said. "I came here to succeed . . . and downtown is going to succeed."

For Spahr, downtown Frederick's future isn't a win-lose, all-or-nothing proposition. Its health, he said, depends on reinvention -- on a constant infusion of new ideas, new talents, and a healthy mix of national chains and independent shops.

"There is enough abundance," he said, "to go around for all of us."