CRISFIELD, Md. -- The future of Crisfield may include more businesses, more opportunity and less flooding. It's the "community vision" coming from city leaders and neighbors.
On Thursday, February 2nd, Crisfield officials were joined by people in town and the Business Economic and Community Outreach Network, or BEACON, to discuss the best direction for the coastal city moving forward.
With boarded up doors, broken windows and empty store fronts all throughout the coastal city, many in town feel the best way to start is filling empty buildings.
"Too many vacant buildings or lacking businesses," said Tim Howlett.
Howlett, who lives in Crisfield, was an integral part of Thursday nights meeting, sitting at table dedicated to business development.
"We need to get that going to improve what people come here for, we need visitors to come, but we need to give them a reason to come here," said Howlett.
Danny Nelson, owner of Waters Edge Café, is happy business development is on the forefront of city leaders minds. But, he feels the town could go even further with it's efforts to bolster Crisfield.
"It's multifaceted, just another restaurant isn't going to work, another shop isn't going to work," said Nelson. "We need hotels, motels, businesses that create income for people, industry."
While Howlett and Nelson said filling up empty buildings will kickstart economic growth, Howlett said a big challenge could be finding suitable takers.
"How do we get people in those, can we give incentives, can we nod the owners that aren't renting them?" said Howlett.
Well, Crisfield's mayor, Darlene Taylor, told WBOC the city has a plan for just that.
"We had some citizens that actually applied for project restore, which is an opportunity for new businesses to get help with their rent, if they went into a building that had been vacant for about six months," said Taylor.
Efforts to mitigate tidal flooding are also a high priority moving forward. The city is looking at installing more tide gates and stormwater pumping stations, and is working with several agencies to form the best plan to keep water off the roads.
"We have the Nature Conservancy that's looking at it, we have a grant called 'Create' where the EPA(Environmental Protection Agency) is actually helping us to look at putting our strategies into tools and finding out what are some of the best things for us to do," said Taylor.
Many in Crisfield, hoping to see less standing water and for sale signs, and more open for business flags in the future.