New businesses starting up in Snow Hill

Take a walk in downtown Snow Hill and you might notice some changes…new businesses popping up.

“I’m opening my salon in Snow Hill Maryland I been really wanting to open a salon for years and it’s finally a dream come true,” says Betsy Brittingham, the owner of Mirror Salon.

“The candy store is going to be open within a month or so. Just down the street is a new art gallery, they’ve been working on it. Up on pearl street we have had two art galleries open up in the last six months so it’s starting to happen here in Snow Hill,” says Michael Day, the Economic Development Coordinator for Snow Hill.

Day tells 47 ABC, it hasn’t been the easiest job bringing businesses downtown. He tells us the buildings are in need of a lot of rehabbing and that can sometimes be a deterrent to business owners.

“If a young person wants to open a business they want to do it right now. They don’t want to wait six months and then open up,” says Day.

Day says the past year the town has been providing grant money in order to offset the costs of re-construction.

“So we took $100,000 and divided it into four. And we have four $25, 000 grant for improvement on the interior of the building. We also have grants up to five thousand dollars for facade, for renovating the outside,” says Day.

The town is also offering free rent for the first few months of a new downtown business, while making the atmosphere more visually appealing. Day admits,  the town has had some setback along the way, one of them being the road collapse on Route 12. He says it was a damper to businesses the week after it happened , but Day says the town is moving forward and continuing with their plan of filling up their downtown area with business and people.