Across Md., towns and counties work to find the ‘new cool’

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CAMBRIDGE — In terms of attracting business, Montgomery County has a list of enviable stats to trumpet: One-sixth of Maryland’s population lives there. It is one of the top 10 wealthiest counties in the country with the highest concentration of Ph.D.s in the nation. And it’s home to one-half of the state’s bio-tech firms.

But money, smarts and innovation haven’t always been enough to trump the “stiff challenges” to economic development, said Lily Qi, the county’s assistant chief administrative officer. Jobs lost in the recession paid more than the jobs gained in the recovery, and while the county is “big on innovation, we are not big on entrepreneurship. We are big on selling to the government,” she said.

Indeed, the county has a perception of a “giant suburb” with no walkability, high prices, and worse in this day and age of attracting and retaining young workers — “no cool,” she said.

It was time to hit the reset button, Qi told attendees at the Maryland Economic Development Association‘s 55^th annual conference, held this week in Cambridge. For starters, the county is shutting down its economic development department and starting the Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation, a public and private partnership similar to what most major jurisdictions have.

“Economic development is too important to be left to economic developers. I’m sorry to say that,” Qi said.

New efforts also will focus on increasing nightlife, improving transit and commercializing research developed in the county’s bio-tech industry.

Qi made her remarks as part of a Tuesday lightning-round presentation of projects around the state in which 10 presenters had five minutes and 20 slides to talk about a program that fit the conference’s theme of “Live, Work & Play” in Maryland.

Her comments highlighted much of what has been discussed her over the past two days – attracting millennials, making downtowns viable, and in this day and age of social media, getting out your community’s message before someone else does.

Katie Parks, director of the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy’s Center for Towns, discussed hopes to redevelop the site of the former Phillips Packing Plant in Cambridge. Eric Olson, executive director of College Park City-University Partnership, discussed the need to keep students in the area after they graduate.

J. Robert Alt, Elkton’s mayor, addressed efforts to fill empty storefronts. Last year, the town adopted a resolution to guarantee the loan for any Cecil County resident who bought property in Elkton to open a business. The idea, Alt said, was to help buyers secure a lower interest rate and maybe even make a purchase with little or no deposit.

It didn’t work: To date, no one has been able to take advantage of the city’s effort. While it was a great idea on paper, Alt said, in real life it was too complicated to work.

As it turns out, that didn’t matter. Since the resolution passed, 10 Cecil County property owners have bought property in Elkton with plans of opening downtown businesses.

“They just wanted to see the town believe in itself,” Alt said. “They know we believe in them, so they believe in us.”