Baltimore's empowerment zone effort received commitments yesterday from two new businesses to employ a total of more than 100 workers -- and praise from the federal official overseeing the urban revitalization program here and in five other cities.
Ribbon-cutting ceremonies were held yesterday to welcome American Distribution Resources, an office supply distributor, and Elder Health, a geriatric health care center, to the empowerment zone in West Baltimore.
That is one of three impoverished areas of the city targeted for economic reinvigoration through $100 million in federal grants and tax breaks to businesses that could be worth $225 million more.
Together, the businesses, which have begun operating, employ nearly 50 people and say they will hire at least that many more, most of them from the empowerment zone. About one of six adults in the empowerment zone is unemployed, nearly three times the national average.
Andrew D. Rod, vice president of American Distribution Resources, said tax credits of up to $3,000 for each zone resident hired were an important consideration in the decision of the 5-year-old New Jersey-based company to locate a regional distribution center in a formerly vacant warehouse in Washington Village, rather than in a suburban industrial park.
"That's one of the reasons we're here," Rod said.
He said his company eventually could employ 75 people, most at wages of $6.50 to $10 an hour, and "60 to 70 percent [of the workers] will be from the neighborhood."
Rebecca Ruggles, Elder Health's executive director for the Baltimore region, said her company had targeted Hollins Park for a health center because of the large number of low-income elderly people living there.
The neighborhood's location in the empowerment zone "was an additional benefit to us," she said.
The company plans to employ 40 workers, most from the empowerment zone, Ruggles said. "These will be zone residents serving zone residents," she said.
At the morning ribbon-cutting for American Distribution Resources, Andrew Cuomo, the assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development who oversees the six urban empowerment zones nationwide, said the company's opening represents "everything empowerment zones are about."
"Baltimore's empowerment zone is setting the pace for business openings, expansions and economic development," he said.
Despite movement that has at times appeared to be glacial since the six empowerment zones were awarded 18 months ago, Cuomo said progress has "exceeded my expectations."
"Community development is not something that happens overnight," he said. "Eighteen months is a snapshot."
City officials clearly are hoping to use yesterday's announcement to spur further development.
"There is indeed a competitive advantage to doing business in the inner city, and more and more people are learning that," Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke said.
The city will hold an event Tuesday to promote innovative environmental technologies in the long-neglected Fairfield industrial area of South Baltimore, a part of the empowerment zone that officials hope will be the site of at least 1,500 new jobs.
Pub Date: 5/24/96
