Revitalizing a neighborhood while preserving its character

Robert Goldman, President, Montgomery Housing Partnership

Challenge: The Long Branch neighborhood of East Silver Spring, MD, struggled with a declining commercial business district. A lack of investment, blight, crime and neglect kept what should have been a vibrant economic corridor from thriving.



The Long Branch neighborhood of East Silver Spring, MD, suffered from its failing commercial business district. A lack of investment, unsightly physical conditions, the perception of high crime and general neglect kept what should have been a vibrant economic corridor from thriving. Compounding the existing economic problems, Long Branch is slated for light rail construction and expects gentrification pressures to push out existing, largely minority-owned neighborhood businesses.

The mission of Montgomery Housing Partnership (MHP) is to preserve and expand quality affordable housing in Montgomery County, MD. Through subsidiaries, MHP has developed and owns more than 1,700 apartment homes around the county, in transit-oriented neighborhoods where low- and moderate-income residents are desperately searching for affordability.

To fulfill our affordable housing mission, MHP identifies and partners with various stakeholders in neighborhoods where we already maintain considerable affordable housing stock to strengthen the neighborhood as a whole. For example, MHP collaborates with civic associations, tackles traffic issues and deals with bulk trash complications in the communities it serves.

Long Branch, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Montgomery County, has been a focus of MHP’s for many years. We currently own six multi-family communities in a five-square-block area. We also operate several community centers and offer resident services. Many of our clients in Long Branch do not own cars. Over the years with support from public-private partnerships, MHP has invested more than $20 million dollars into acquiring and rehabbing properties in Long Branch.

MHP began working in Long Branch’s commercial corridor more intensively some five years ago. Our goal was to revitalize the area as a whole, help individual businesses and preserve the character of the neighborhood. We wanted to beautify the area and increase business success without so gentrifying it that our success would undermine the feeling of being at home in the very community we have worked so hard to house affordably.

Early on, MHP decided that physical changes to the public face of the area were of central importance for two reasons. First, only concrete changes would begin to reverse the atmosphere of discouragement and get both business owners and residents willing to start re-imagining what the area could be. Second, it was simply not plausible that new customers would start coming into an area that, in terms of its external appearance, pretty much shouted, “Go away!”

So we plunged ahead! Our subsequent success came from a combination of perseverance and good luck. We were lucky in that MHP was able to find selfless partners among small store owners on or near the busy Flower Avenue corridor who have proven willing, year after year, to stick with the program. Local businesses formed a partnership with MHP and our County colleagues and provided the nucleus of a Long Branch Business League (LBBL), which has become the voice and the face of commercial Long Branch. MHP was also lucky in finding partners in the county government who, over time, came to share our ethic and strategy.

MHP’s strategy was, in short, to improve Long Branch by making cumulative small changes, oriented mainly to the arts and improved design. Equally important, we wanted to respect the neighborhood’s existing minority-owned character, preserve affordability and improve the bottom line for businesses.

MHP’s final piece of good luck was crucial: we secured a sympathetic hearing from the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, and in 2014, it began to support our Arts Based Revitalization Program.  Our goal was to achieve the integration of arts and culture into economic renewal efforts, and to do so in a way that demonstrates how low-income and mixed-income neighborhoods can thrive. 
Since then, MHP has commissioned and installed six vibrant and colorful murals on the sides of businesses within an area of just a few blocks. These murals reflect the rich culture and heritages of the neighborhood’s residents, and were painted by local and national artists.

We have made other design improvements, such as a beautifully painted awning on a storefront, repainted store interiors, new glass on front windows and updated signs -- some hand painted, some manufactured -- for stores in the Long Branch commercial area.

“I am so impressed by how much your organization has done to transform the shopping center,” says Nina Muys. “I have lived in the area since 1969 and have seen it go through many stages, but this is the best it has looked.”
Our success in the design department attracted notice from local colleges and universities, and MHP and LBBL have forged relationships with the schools. Since 2013, the University of Maryland has held creative arts and dance events on Long Branch’s Flower Avenue and helped create temporary art for a major festival.

What is MHP’s measure of success in Long Branch? On the qualitative side, we find that people no longer toss trash casually in the neighborhood. The mood is more upbeat. Groups of men drinking from paper sacks no longer assemble on Flower Avenue. The atmosphere has changed.

Numbers also point in the right direction. Business success in Long Branch has improved. In 2015, according to a survey of 22 small businesses that MHP conducts annually, we found that 71 percent had seen an increase in customers compared with the previous year, and two-thirds had seen an increase in sales.