When Dorothy Good was growing up in Reisterstown, the neighborhood to the east -- Owings Mills -- was just a name of a place on a map.
"Why, there really wasn't anything even there," said Good, a resident of Reisterstown for 71 of her 72 years. But in the last 15 years, Reisterstown, on the map for 241 years, has been overshadowed and practically engulfed by the high growth of Owings Mills and Owings Mills New Town.
Still, residents of Reisterstown think of themselves as a separate town with its own identity, quite apart from Owings Mills. The main street of Reisterstown and its surrounding community is doing rather well these days. In fact, many consider Reisterstown a real town when compared to Owings Mills.
While Owings Mills' definition of a town center is a shopping mall and office buildings, Reisterstown is a traditional community with churches, schools, a library, and businesses at its heart.
Its Main Street, at the junction of routes 140 and 30, has just had a face lift that -- including new sidewalks and lighting -- that gives its business district with its antique shops a more unified look.
"The sidewalks were narrow and broken, and the road was a mess," recalled Carolyn Eichler, chairwoman of the Chamber of Commerce's Main Street council. The council and property owners, with the state and Baltimore County, pushed the project through to completion in the fall of 1998.
"It's really improved the business climate," added Eichler.
The renovation was important because, within Reisterstown, two shopping centers several blocks from the Main Street business hub on Route 140 drew business away from the original shopping area. But with a new Food Lion grocery story and gas station at routes 140 and 30, Main Street is attracting a new wave of shoppers. Almost all the residences that line Reisterstown Road have been converted ti professional offices or small businesses, including a Queen Anne-style house, which is now Newport Assisted Living.
The Reisterstown Business Center, a complex built in the early 1990s off Chatsworth Road, is fully leased, providing an employment center for the area. Most residents, however, commute to Towson or Hunt Valley or take the metro at Owings Mills to go to downtown Baltimore.
Homebuyers are drawn to Reisterstown because of the small-town atmosphere, something that doesn't exist in Owings Mills, said Robin Hodel, an agent with Coldwell Banker Grempler Real Estate Inc., who moved to the area from Vermont.
