The investment a business makes in a community can't be reckoned only in terms of bricks and mortar. It also has to include a desire to improve the quality of goods and services for customers and create a safe environment for employees. That kind of commitment ultimately benefits people far beyond its immediate neighborhood.
The $300,000 gift big-box retailer Target made this week to the Baltimore Police Department to beef up crime-fighting efforts around its new store at Mondawmin Mall in West Baltimore is an example of that kind of commitment. The money - augmented by $140,000 in state matching funds - will help the city purchase portable command posts and improve its cell phone tracking system to combat violent crime in the area as the mall undergoes a $70 million makeover.
Mondawmin has a long and storied history as one of the first shopping malls in the country. But over the years, as demographic patterns changed and many large retailers relocated to the suburbs, its fortunes have varied. Target, which opened its Mondawmin store in July to great excitement - it's one of the few big-box retailers in the country to locate in an urban neighborhood - is part of the most recent effort to revive the mall. It's hoped that Target's arrival, along with last year's opening of a Shoppers Food and Pharmacy, will spur a level of commercial activity not seen in the area for years.
