< Back to News

11/08

WEAVING CAMPUS AND COMMUNITY IN THE
NEW URBAN VILLAGE
By Cynthia W. Bledsoe, Executive Director, GTC

The Greater Towson Committee has a rich history of offering its annual series of Towson Town Hall Meetings as a public service to the community. Topics have ranged from reinventing main streets, life in college towns, urban parking solutions and in depth reviews of Towson collaborative planning processes. All are free, open to the public and offer opportunity for questions and answers, following a traditional Town Hall Meeting format.

In this year’s series, the GTC plans to offer an opportunity for those interested to come together and hear from our Towson college and university leaders. The GTC believes we are a richer community by the presence of both Goucher College and Towson University and hopes through this effort to enrich the bond between campus and community.

GTC President Larry Schmidt, of Gildea and Schmidt, LLC, has made this a priority during his term and it is a natural fit for the Greater Towson Committee. Why? The GTC’s mission to promote reinvestment and revitalization in Towson can be directly linked to the opportunities which exist to connect our campuses with our town core, now moving to become a walkable, mixed use village for living, working and playing. Towson is in a unique position to build an enhanced walkable, mixed use town, in part, due to having campuses in such close proximity to our town core.

Our student populations, as Dr. Bob Caret, President of Towson University points out, are the ones pouring our coffee and waiting on our tables. So we have a built in employee base for our retail and restaurant businesses. This type of employee base provides a great location for start up retail, since these businesses usually depend upon a part time student labor pool.

It is important to recognize, however, that living in towns at or near colleges doesn’t mean good development caters only to students. In fact typical college town development indicators show only roughly 20 percent of retail sales come from students, a market who is only there perhaps 60 percent of the year. The beauty is that these same retail businesses are shared by students, workers, residents and faculty, thus the making of a true urban mixed village of all ages. Other elements to these successful villages include narrow streets to slow traffic, pedestrian crosswalks, on street parking and transit.

And, yes, many places, such as South Campus Gateway at Ohio State University, are successful with busses providing their only source of mass transit, as is the case in Towson. In this Columbus, Ohio project, a run down stretch of deteriorating buildings was replaced with a vibrant urban village. Since the project’s completion a few years ago, the area has experienced a rippling effect of positive redevelopment of adjacent properties.

Towson can become a magnet for those desiring a walk to the office, store or coffee shop, a short bus ride to arts, sports and entertainment at Towson University or a brisk jog through the beauty of the Goucher College campus.

For more information on Towson Town Hall Meetings, Towson Development or the Walkable Towson Plan, contact me at gtc@greatertowson.com. See you Towson!

< Back to News