State helps fund market project to expand Downtown SBY

SALISBURY, Md. – Maryland Governor Wes Moore has announced revitalization program funding awards to promote economic development and job production.

Bill Chambers, Salisbury Area Chamber of Commerce President, says the future Salisbury Market Center aims to allow the downtown area to continue to grow by adding local businesses and housing.

“We applaud the Moore administration and Secretary day for recognizing that Salisbury is a growing economy,” Chambers said. “We are one of the few population growth centers on the Eastern Shore… If it generates jobs and tax dollars, it’s good for Salisbury and it’s good for the region.”

Chambers also stated that Downtown Saslibury has seen significant growth over the last five to six years. Developmental projects like this one, he says, will keep that growth going.

“These are all part of the menu for transforming Salisbury, which was already the capital of the Eastern Shore, to transforming Salisbury really to the capital up and down the coast from Jersey to Norfolk,” Chambers said.

Business leaders also hope that the project will be another tool in the toolbox for promoting job growth, and generating tax dollars for the City and Wicomico County.

“We have got our airport, we have got our thriving downtown, we have residents being built downtown. So, the marketplace, although it is not a huge project, adds to this menu of development projects that generate great economic activity for the region,” said Chambers.

Saslibury Mayor Randy Taylor also looks forward to the project’s potential benefits.

“It will give us a fairly large retail addition to the downtown, which will hopefully take the form of a marketplace,” Mayor Taylor said. “And of course, residential and affordable housing above that, which we desperately need as we try to get more heads and beds in downtown.”