For the second time in three years, downtown Sykesville has been named one of the best historic Main Streets in the country.
Downtown Sykesville Connection, a nonprofit that manages economic development for the city’s downtown, is one of eight semifinalists for this year’s Great American Main Street Awards. The awards recognize historic downtowns and commercial districts across the United States, celebrating economic development and revitalization efforts.
Sykesville was named a semifinalist in 2023, but did not win the award. Since then, the city has used feedback from the 2023 GAMSA process to enhance its economic development plans, according to Julie Della-Maria, executive director of the Downtown Sykesville Connection.
The organization has focused more on cultural celebrations and even built two storefronts in a renovated historic building, encouraging residents to “Get Syked” about Sykesville, as it said in its application for this year’s awards.
“All of those efforts combined have made Sykesville more and more sought after by businesses each year,” Della-Maria said.
With a population of just over 4,600, Sykesville is the smallest semifinalist, and will be going up against much larger cities like Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Steamboat Springs, Colorado, as it competes to be crowned the winner of the GAMSA in April.
Still, Sykesville remains one of the fastest-growing areas in Carroll County , having seen an influx of about 600 residents since 2020. Over the past two years, Downtown Sykesville Connection has helped add 36 jobs, rehabilitate 48 historic buildings, and establish eight new businesses, according to data provided by Della-Maria.
Two of these new businesses — Uncle Joe’s Deli and Market and Moonshadow Collective, an art studio — are housed in 7611 Main St., a once-empty historic building that Downtown Sykesville Connection helped renovate starting in winter 2024. The stores opened in August.
Diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, or human-centered programming, as Sykesville calls it, were another area that the town wanted to improve after its 2023 GAMSA nomination. The town hosts annual cultural events such as Juneteenth and Pride, and in 2023, added a Diwali celebration in October. This year, Sykesville’s Diwali celebration will be hosted as a street festival on Oct. 25, Della-Maria said.
“There are people wearing traditional Indian clothing, people in their regular clothes, all set against the backdrop of Sykesville’s historic buildings,” she said. “It really shows the power of contrast.”
Downtown Sykesville Connection also expanded its Black History Month programming this year and has launched a series on its website that compiles stories of the town’s earliest Black residents. Before its founding in 1904, much of Sykesville consisted of a 3,000-acre slave plantation, and Black residents played a significant role in the town’s status as a railroad hub in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Della-Maria said that since expanding these programs, Downtown Sykesville Connection has seen an influx of donations and people wanting to volunteer, even attracting high school students to interview residents and historians about Black history in Sykesville.
“The economy of Sykesville was built on their backs,” Della-Maria said of the town’s early Black residents. “It’s really paramount to our mission to be able to share their stories.”
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