Maintaining the city of Frederick’s rapid business growth while improving key sectors such as the Golden Mile and the East Street corridor were the hot topics as city officials and business leaders got together Friday to exchange ideas about the city’s economic health and future.

The Frederick County Chamber of Commerce hosted the gathering at City Hall, where members also heard Mayor Randy McClement (R) and the Board of Aldermen discuss the new Wegmans grocery store, which opened Sunday in the Clemson Corner Shopping Center on Wormans Mill Road. New businesses such as Wegmans and the other new stores in Clemson Corner are “the start of what we hope will be more growth,” McClement said.

McClement also noted the city’s ongoing efforts to improve the Golden Mile business district on Route 40. McClement spent $5,000 from the mayor’s contingency fund to start the Golden Mile Alliance, he said, which will promote the Golden Mile as a business destination, similar to what the Downtown Frederick Partnership does for the city’s historic downtown.

Alderman Kelly Russell (D) touched on making downtown more bicyclist-friendly, saying the city received an honorable mention for a designation as a bicycle-friendly city from the League of American Bicyclists. City officials also are working to improve the 7th Street corridor from East Street to Fort Detrick and make it more accessible for bicyclists, she said.

While Tammy Bomberger said more bicyclists on 7th Street may help local businesses, she also would like to see city officials take another look at their policy for business signage.

“I had put up signs but they had to be taken down,” said Bomberger, who co-owns Papa Murphy’s Take ‘N’ Bake Pizza on West 7th Street with her husband, Mark.

Bomberger also said she wants to see city officials help promote local businesses. However, “I need to get more involved with economic development,” she said.

Increased collaboration between city and Frederick County officials on services such as water and sewer also was discussed. Wendy M. Hagan, laboratory manager at Fredericktowne Labs in Myersville, shared the opinion of others that city and county officials should work together on such issues.

“If people don’t want to live in a community, they’re not going to want to bring their business there,” said Hagan, a Frederick resident whose company provides environmental testing services. “I would like to see the city and county be more together.”

The city’s economic growth is constrained by tighter budgets, according to James R. Racheff, chairman and CEO of Data Management Services in downtown, which offers information and management sciences services. He pointed to the work done by the city’s Department of Economic Development in areas such as Carroll Creek and East Street and said there has been “an effort to work on the Golden Mile to spur more creative use of space.”

Among the improvements Racheff wants to see made to the Golden Mile is easing traffic on Route 40 while making it easier to access the different shopping centers in the area.

“I’d also like to see them facilitate the pulling of storefronts closer to the road and create more pedestrian traffic,” Racheff said. However, new retail in other areas of Frederick such as Clemson Corner makes it harder for the Golden Mile to compete, “and it’s a tough nut to crack for city leaders,” he said.

chuntemann@gazette.net