"If you were to walk down Germantown Avenue between Mt. Pleasant Street and Allens Lane, you'll see a thriving downtown area," says Anuj Gupta, the executive director of
Mt. Airy USA, a community development organization. Gupta was hired to lead the group last November, and as he explains it, one of his major goals is to capture the explosive growth taking place along Germantown Avenue's northern stretch ("that
energy, that
momentum," he says), and to push it further south.
The process of creating new commercial life, of course, is no small feat. But Gupta and his colleagues recently learned that they've been given a considerable head start in the form of a
Community Development Block Grant. Mt. Airy USA was awarded $249,600, all of which has been earmarked for a city-sponsored project known as the Mixed-Use Development Pilot Program. The funds will be used to rehabilitate two small and dilapidated Germantown Avenue buildings--one on the 6500 block and another on the 6600 block--into commercial spaces with affordable apartments on top.
Gupta's hope is that by properly repairing and then leasing the two spaces, which are both located just south of the booming strip in Mt. Airy, community revitalization will continue its forward march south along the avenue. And while he does have other neighborhood-improvement plans in place--talks are underway to start an outdoor summer movie series, for instance--Gupta ultimately hopes the upcoming projects will help "ignite the next resurgence of Germantown Avenue" by enticing private investors to seriously consider the underutilized and less trendy stretches of the street.
"Small business owners are climbing on top of one another to try and get in there," Gupta says, referring to the stretch of the avenue between Mt. Pleasant Street and Allens Lane. "And we want to try and get to the same tipping point further south."
Source: Anuj Gupta, Mt. Airy USA
Writer: Dan Eldridge
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