{"id":12934,"date":"2025-07-17T13:57:56","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T17:57:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/?p=12934"},"modified":"2025-07-17T13:57:58","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T17:57:58","slug":"dhcd-announces-new-main-street-maryland-community-designations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/2025\/07\/17\/dhcd-announces-new-main-street-maryland-community-designations\/","title":{"rendered":"DHCD Announces New Main Street Maryland Community Designations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development has introduced a new three-tier structure for the Main Street Maryland program in order to help more communities reach national accreditation status.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Main Street Maryland has been transforming communities across the state <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">since 1998. As the official coordinating program for Maryland by the National Main Street Center, the program is housed at the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development and focuses on strengthening Maryland\u2019s downtown commercial districts through local investment and revitalization.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">On July 1, the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development changed its Main Street Maryland designation system to include three tiers. The change makes the Main Street Maryland program more inclusive and better supports Designated communities to achieve accreditation by Main Street America.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The new tiers are as follows:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Designated Main Streets<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> are the top-tier, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/mainstreet.org\/our-network\/community-evaluation-framework\/designation-tiers\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">accredited programs with the National Main Street Center\u200b<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u200b. These communities will use the full <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/mainstreet.org\/about\/how-we-work\/the-main-street-approach\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Main Street Approach<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><sup>TM<\/sup> to support long-term, local revitalization. Designated communities show a strong commitment to:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Economic development<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Preserving local historic and cultural resources<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Building inclusive volunteer support and partnerships<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Raising financial and in-kind support from local government and other partners<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Aspiring Main Streets<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> have been working in the Main Street Approach<\/span><sup><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">TM<\/span><\/sup><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and are ready to pursue designation. They complete a two-year training program offered by Main Street Maryland which will help them achieve accreditation with the National Main Street Center.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Connected Main Streets<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> are not yet eligible for designation under the Main Street Maryland program, but want to use one or more pillars of the Main Street Approach to improve their community&#8217;s economy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Under this new reorganization, Main Street Maryland now has 29 Designated Main Street communities, six Aspiring Main Streets and seven Connected across the state.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2025\/07\/NewTiersList-MainStreetMaryland.pdf\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-12936\" src=\"http:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2025\/07\/MSM-Tiers-Graphic-2-2-240x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"293\" height=\"366\" srcset=\"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2025\/07\/MSM-Tiers-Graphic-2-2-240x300.png 240w, https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2025\/07\/MSM-Tiers-Graphic-2-2-819x1024.png 819w, https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2025\/07\/MSM-Tiers-Graphic-2-2-768x960.png 768w, https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2025\/07\/MSM-Tiers-Graphic-2-2.png 1080w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 293px) 100vw, 293px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Main Street Maryland communities continue to drive local economies across the state and have seen 200 new businesses opened, 933 full- or part-time jobs created, and 327 properties improved in Main Street districts in just Calendar Year 2024 alone.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Learn more about Main Street Maryland and how it could help your community at <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/mainstreetmaryland.org\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">mainstreetmaryland.org.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development has introduced a new three-tier structure for the Main Street Maryland program in order to help more communities reach national accreditation status. Main Street Maryland has been transforming communities across the state since 1998. As the official coordinating program for Maryland by the National Main Street Center,<a href=\"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/2025\/07\/17\/dhcd-announces-new-main-street-maryland-community-designations\/\">&nbsp;&nbsp;Read the Rest&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":273,"featured_media":12937,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[285,20,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-features","category-main-street-maryland","category-neighborhood-revitalization"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/273"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12934"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12939,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12934\/revisions\/12939"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}