UO > Community Profile > Cumberland, MD

Innate charm

Cumberland is also working to cash in on its small-town charm. “Some towns are trying to re-create the village feeling, but it already exists here. It just shut down a bit for a little while,” says Buehl at the Chamber of Commerce.

In 2000, Mayor Lee Fiedler and the City Council set up a plan to increase social and recreational activity in the center of town. “We settled on three goals,” Fiedler recalls. “Getting the 8-to-5 crowd downtown again, creating interest with such enticements as outdoor dining and interesting activities, and renovating upper stories of buildings so that people could live downtown.” The campaign also hoped to attract large employers downtown.

Involved in the plan were city economic development and business groups, the Chamber of Commerce, two area colleges, Cumberland’s Main Street Maryland program, realtors, and even the Allegany Arts Council, which campaigned to draw artists to town who would rent or buy studios on or near the Baltimore Street pedestrian mall. The once-deserted mall was revitalized.

So far, at least 32 new small businesses have bought into spaces on the mall, including David Kauffman and his wife, who opened a music store there in 2000 and, after occupying two venues, recently bought a building. They sell mainly school band and orchestra instruments on the first floor, run a music academy on the second, and live on the third. “I look at unutilized space as a frustration,” says Kauffman.

Exactly right, says Kathy McKenney, who directs city efforts to fill the upper stories of downtown buildings. Tenants or buyers usually find financing for first-floor businesses, then take advantage of state grants to renovate second and third floors—or more. The opportunities have attracted new, current, and former residents, such as an architect whose street floor houses a coffee shop. A gathering space and conference area is on the second, and his offices are on the third. Other businesses on and near the mall include bridal, greeting card, floral, jewelry, yarn, sporting goods, office supply, book, and children’s shops, plus a bakery and numerous eateries with outdoor tables creating a festive atmosphere.

The Arts Council has been instrumental in designating the area an arts and entertainment district, with special grants programs and tax incentives for artists who move into downtown buildings. The council has teamed with realtors who will soon be part of the its Web site. The umbrella agency for more than 40 local arts agencies, the council also coordinates a variety of arts programs, including week-long grade school sessions involving professional musicians, actors, and dancers, with teachers presenting compatible study units. The Maryland Symphony comes from Hagerstown, about 50 miles east, for an annual concert and workshops for young children. “These are amazing arts experiences,” says the council’s executive director, Andy Vick.

Among other arts events are Fridays After Five, a weekly mall entertainment happening, and annual tours of some 25 artists’ studios. “Summer in the City,” a full weekend of outdoor music at three locations, happens from Memorial Day through September. There’s also a weekly farmers’ market from June through October.

The change in occupancy and property values has been remarkable, according to Mayor Fiedler. “A three-story downtown building someone bought for $10,000 in the late 1990s recently sold for $400,000,” he beams. A 1990s vacancy rate of 80 percent is now 10 percent.

On a larger scale, CSX Transportation maintains the city’s early raison d’etre by employing a thousand workers in its Cumberland railyards. But newer payroll heroes have come to town, such as American Woodmark, the world’s third largest wooden kitchen cabinet manufacturer, which will soon employ 500 workers at a new assembly plant in one of the area’s eight new business/industrial parks, plus another 300 at a second nearby facility.

“Now,” says Loff, “county economic people are getting calls from other companies wanting to know what’s going on in Cumberland to attract these important manufacturers.” He also credits former State House of Delegates representative Casper R. Taylor, Jr. with bringing a modern state and federal prison to Allegany County.

Technology Day, an informational fair held in cooperation with nearby Frostburg University, is yet another strategy for attracting skilled employees and small companies, several of which have signed contracts to relocate. Another plus: County officials are putting finishing touches on a countywide broadband, high-speed wireless Internet loop that can carry audio/video/data transmissions throughout the world.

In still another spirit of cooperation, Mayor Fiedler, aware of the commercial value of health-care facilities, pushed for rezoning to allow more ambulatory health-care facilities to open their doors in every formerly restricted neighborhood but one.

In the meantime, a block away from the pedestrian mall, the 1913 Western Maryland Railway Station has been historically rehabilitated and now houses a visitor center, shops, a restaurant, the county visitor center, offices of the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad, and an exhibit center of the C&O Canal National Historical Park. Rail buffs and tourists can take 16-mile rides through the rugged mountains to Frostburg, including 16 murder mystery events during the season with themes from the rock ‘n roll “Who Slew Peggy Sue?” to the thriller about “Underworld” figure Bigwig Broccoli who gets bumped off in “The Mafia Mob Murder Mystery.”

The old canal is being excavated, “rewatered” and revived as a recreational and historic attraction, complete with mule-drawn boat rides. It is a component of the towpath trail and festival grounds which will open in July as the site of the annual CanalFest/RailFest. Complete with traditional music, cultural programs, model railroad displays, food, arts, and crafts, the event attracted 17,000 visitors last year. This year, organizers hope to attract the Art Train, a five-car art museum that travels the nation.

With five historic buildings now on site, more big projects are in the offing. There’s a new hotel and an adjacent warehouse is being rehabbed as a museum/visitor center. “This is the biggest, most exciting project I’ve been involved in,” says Richard Pfefferkorn, the executive director of the Canal Place Preservation and Development Authority. He is a seasoned downtown/historic developer of projects in Kentucky and South Carolina who arrived in 1994 and part of the mix of newcomers and native Cumberlanders pulling together as the city works to revive its “Queen City” reputation.

Andy Vick, the arts council executive director and a newcomer too, says, “The energy is just palpable, and it’s amazing what you can accomplish when people work together.”

Enthusiasm seems infectious for physicians, too. “For the most part, they come here to work, and then they stay here,” reports WMHC community relations director Rogers. “It’s a place where they can maintain busy and lucrative practices without city hassles and wind down their lifestyle after work. A lot of them buy country property and become gentlemen farmers. Sometimes it’s funny to be in an elevator with two doctors who are talking about raising horses and harvesting hay.”

If there’s a downside to the idyllic small-town life on this “mountain side of Maryland,” it’s a lack of conveniently located air transportation. US Airways pulled out of the Cumberland Regional Airport to reduce its financial drain, and a brief reincarnation of Pan American went defunct. But, for Lambert and Hewett, there’s a good tradeoff. Lambert says, “I’ve traded 10 hours a week of traffic in DC for two hours to one of four major airports.”

Cumberland has become home to a surprising variety of international physicians, who number a third of the city’s total medical population. While forced by visa regulations to work for awhile in an “underserved” community, a large number of these emigres from India, Pakistan, the Philippines, China, and the Middle East find western Maryland a comfortable place to stay. According to Smith, “There has been very little turnover in this medical community. I can only think of two doctors leaving since I came,” and that includes the practitioners from across the sea.

Lambert has made his own commitment. He’s restoring a large Victorian home in the historic district just up the hill from the Baltimore Street mall. “I hope to pass it on to my kids someday.”

A city promotional brochure has a catchy take on population stability. Under the title “City Vital Signs” it says: “People who wouldn’t live anywhere else—21,750.” g