Politics & Government

How to Reduce Development Impacts on Wheaton's Small Businesses? Ask Them First

While official negotiations continue between B.F. Saul and the county, a larger survey is planned to deal with the development's impacts on the downtown area.

B.F. Saul currently waits on pro-forma negotiations between the company, Montgomery County and WMATA before it can officially start its redevelopment plan for downtown Wheaton. In the meantime, a big question is how construction - not to mention a major new office building, as well as retail and residential buildings - will affect the many small businesses in the area.

“I don’t want to raise expectations; there will be an impact,” David Dise, director of Department of General Services, said at the June meeting of the Wheaton Redevelopment Advisory Committee (WRAC). “There will be an impact if we’re digging a 30-foot hole where Parking Lot 13 is.”

But local groups are wondering how exactly the county plans to minimize the impact of this major public-private partnership development.

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In June, WRAC members presented Steve Silverman, director of the Department of Economic Development, with redevelopment priorities agreed on by 25 small Latino businesses in Wheaton during sessions organized by the Latino Economic Development Corporation.

Director Manny Hidalgo said that the results matched closely to an earlier, wider survey done in 2005 by the county about what small businesses wanted in the event of major redevelopment.

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Some of these priorities included reviving the county's Impact Assistance Fund, training on how to retain business during construction and attracting new customers afterward, as well as to maintain maximum access to busineses for patrons, deliveries and trash removal.

Silverman said that County Executive Ike Leggett was committed to including a line-item in the entire project’s budget to specifically help small businesses disrupted by the redevelopment, whether it took the form of temporary relocation within Wheaton, capital improvement money, direct transfers or something else entirely.

“It will be our nickel, not B.F. Saul’s,” Silverman said. In regards to the recent survey by LEDC, Silverman said it was "all on the table" for discussion, although not everything listed could be done.

But the process to figure out what gets that nickel appears to be two-fold.

At the WRAC meeting, Silverman said that county staff would begin the process by talking individually with both business owners and property owners.

Meanwhile, Pete McGinnity, manager at the Wheaton Redevelopment Program, said his office, in coordination with Urban District, is trying to finalize a broader survey that will likely go out this fall.

“We’re trying to get a better handle on what businesses want,” McGinnity said. “We go around and talk to them, but you get a lot of anecdoctal information that way. We're looking now to quantify that with some data.”

This story has been corrected to clarify LEDC's role.


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