{"id":13688,"date":"2026-05-28T11:52:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T15:52:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/?p=13688"},"modified":"2026-05-28T11:52:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T15:52:30","slug":"interested-in-becoming-a-main-street-maryland-community-heres-how-to-apply","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/2026\/05\/28\/interested-in-becoming-a-main-street-maryland-community-heres-how-to-apply\/","title":{"rendered":"Interested in Becoming a Main Street Maryland Community? Here\u2019s How to Apply\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">For nearly three decades, Main Street Maryland has supported Maryland\u2019s historic downtowns.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">As part of the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/dhcd.maryland.gov\/Pages\/default.aspx\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Main Street Maryland serves as the state coordinating program for the<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mainstreet.org\/\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">National Main Street Center\u200b<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a subsidiary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The program began in 1998 with three Maryland communities and now supports over 50 statewide. These are some of the strongest and most resilient business districts in Maryland and include <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/2026\/04\/17\/governor-moore-announces-downtown-sykesville-as-winner-of-2026-great-american-main-street-award-marylands-first-since-2005\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">two Great American Main Street Award winners: Frederick and Sykesville.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Main Street Maryland communities commit to growing the local economy, improving downtown&#8217;s appearance and strengthening the image of their traditional business districts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Is your Maryland community ready to join us? The <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/dhcd.maryland.gov\/Communities\/Pages\/programs\/MainStreet.aspx\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">application to apply to the<\/span><b> Main Street Maryland Connected <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">tier is now open<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The Connected<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> category is the entry-level tier to the program. Connected communities want to use one or more pillars of the\u00a0 Main Street Approach<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">TM <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">to improve their community&#8217;s economy. Information on advanced tiers of the program, Aspiring and Designated, can be found on the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/dhcd.maryland.gov\/Communities\/Pages\/programs\/MainStreet.aspx\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Main Street Maryland webpage<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Applications for Aspiring and Designated tiers are expected to open in Spring 2027.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A link to the online application to the Main Street Maryland program and information on the process is available <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/dhcd.maryland.gov\/Communities\/Pages\/programs\/MainStreet.aspx\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">here<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Scroll to the section of the page entitled \u201cHow to Become a Main Street Maryland Community.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Communities interested in applying can join an information session <\/span><b>on Wednesday, June 10 at 3 p.m.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A link to join the Google meeting is on the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/dhcd.maryland.gov\/Communities\/Pages\/programs\/MainStreet.aspx\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">website<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. No registration is required. The deadline to apply is<\/span><b> Friday, August 7, 2026 at 5 p.m.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Staff will not review late or incomplete applications.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Program staff are available at the info session to answer your questions. Any other questions about the application outside of the info session should be sent to <\/span><a href=\"mailto:dhcd.mainstreetmaryland@maryland.gov\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">dhcd.mainstreetmaryland@maryland.gov<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><br style=\"font-weight: 400\" \/><br style=\"font-weight: 400\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For nearly three decades, Main Street Maryland has supported Maryland\u2019s historic downtowns. As part of the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development, Main Street Maryland serves as the state coordinating program for the National Main Street Center\u200b, a subsidiary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The program began in 1998 with three Maryland<a href=\"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/2026\/05\/28\/interested-in-becoming-a-main-street-maryland-community-heres-how-to-apply\/\">&nbsp;&nbsp;Read the Rest&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":242,"featured_media":0,"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-13688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","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\/13688","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\/242"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13688"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13690,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13688\/revisions\/13690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dhcd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}