The President's Letter

George Brookhart
President 

Recently the chamber posted a survey on its website titled; "How to Shape Catonsville's Future". We asked five questions related to Catonsville's redevelopment and economic future, asking our respondents:  How do you want Catonsville to be?

Roughly 25% of our members responded, which is one of the best responses we have had on any of our surveys….thank you!

So – what were the results? The answers you gave us are not at all surprising.

The general feeling is that you want Catonsville to keep that small village atmosphere. You want more unique, small shops, with no big chain box stores. You want Catonsville to be clean, safe and appealing – and a good coffee shop is on everyone's agenda! Many of you want to see something like a Trader Joe's locate in our community. One of the biggest responses is you want our village to be more walkable with good bike paths and more green space and parks.

It's become very apparent that Catonsville is attracting more and more young professionals into our area. They like what they see here and they find the quality of our school system very appealing. They too like the village feel with its proximity to Baltimore, BWI, UMBC and parks for their children.

We took a look at parking in the survey, since that is a sore spot for many of our businesses. The general opinion is that our businesses should pull together to come up with a creative solution to this issue.

The overall opinion is that a lot of positive things have been happening on Frederick Road - and that we should keep heading in that direction and encouraging our property owners to clean up their storefronts and make them more appealing.

The survey went into depth on these questions and more, and we have learned a lot from your responses. We hope to do more surveys in the future, to ensure that Catonsville Chamber members have a voice in the growth of the community, and that your voice is heard! The Chamber will be looking carefully at your responses as we plan the next stages in the evolution of our community.

Many thanks to all of you who participated.