Progress has been ‘phenomenal,’ comptroller says
CUMBERLAND — Although finishing touches were underway, Suzanne and Mike D’Atri welcomed visitors to see their new restaurant in a historic building.
The couple, who own D’Atri Subs Etc on Columbia Street in Cumberland’s North End, hope to open Downtown D’Atri Pasta & Subs in the McMullen Building mid-October.
On Friday, they led Maryland Comptroller Brooke Lierman on a tour of the space.
She was in Cumberland as part of her statewide Take a Look with Brooke initiative that includes visits to small businesses and focuses on economic development projects across the state.
“I’m happy to show it off,” Mike D’Atri said of the future restaurant that will employ roughly 30 people and soon open its doors to the public. “It’s been a lot of work.”
Partnerships among private entities, and city, county, state and federal government were highlighted as Lierman visited merchants in Allegany and Garrett counties.
She toured the Baltimore Street renovation project including some businesses with Cumberland Mayor Ray Morriss, City Council members Eugene Frazier and Laurie Marchini, Downtown Development Commission Executive Director Melinda Kelleher, Allegany County Economic & Community Development Department Director of Tourism Ashli Workman and Senior Project Manager Nathan Price.
While in the Rosenbaum Building, Lierman took a selfie with the new Cumberland postcard mural painted by artist Marc Phillips.
The comptroller, who was at a March 2023 groundbreaking ceremony for the $16 million Baltimore Street Revitalization Project, called progress that’s been made downtown in the past 18 months “phenomenal.”
The enterprise, led by Triton Construction, of St. Albans, West Virginia, updated aging infrastructure and transformed the former pedestrian mall to include a single-lane street for car and bicycle traffic.
The project demonstrates the importance of private and public investment to create economic growth, Lierman said.
“Every county matters,” Lierman said. “Maryland can never be all it should be without a thriving Allegany County.”
Prior to her visit downtown, the comptroller stopped at Cumberland’s Grow West Cannabis Company, which provides “good paying jobs with benefits” that can help break the local cycle of poverty, she said.
Partnerships between the city, county and state have provided a “huge key” to the development of downtown, Price said.
“It’s unbelievable how much it’s changed,” he said of downtown. “Visitors can feel the new energy.”
Help for small businesses
Christy Butler is the state’s western region public engagement officer for the comptroller’s office.
After she retired from the U.S. Army, Butler worked as an events planner in Frederick County, but that job ended due to COVID-19.
She later learned of the opportunity to work for the comptroller’s office.
“I didn’t really know a lot about Mountain Maryland,” Butler said and acknowledged the vast differences in urban and economic growth between Allegany and Garrett Counties versus Frederick and Washington counties.
So she met with local Chamber of Commerce organizations to better understand the needs of area merchants.
Today, Butler helps small businesses in Western Maryland navigate processes including financial grants, which have grown significantly since the pandemic.
“We help give people resources,” she said. “COVID changed the way that we do business.”
Looking back, moving forward
In 2020, Garrett Eagan and Chris Hendershot, both Cumberland natives, via their company CG Enterprises LLC bought the McMullen Building, once home to Woolworths and later the G.C. Murphy Co. department store, at 138 Baltimore St.
In 2022, the building’s restoration project was awarded $800,000 in state grants and tax credits that led to a massive rooftop solar-panel system, 14 luxury apartments and six business spaces.
In addition to D’Atri’s, businesses that leased space in the build- ing include Queen City Creamery, the American Job Service, Western Maryland Consortium, Maryland Legal Aid, Division of Rehabilitation Services and Court Appointed Special Advocates of Western Maryland.
Downtown D’Atri’s features a series of murals painted by local artist Parris Ashley.
“He’s a fantastic artist,” Mike D’Atri said. “He’s a hard worker and he’s got some good ideas.”
Renovation of the space for the new eatery coincided with construction work on Baltimore Street, and both projects will open this fall.
“We’re kind of glad that we got in on the tail end,” Mike D’Atri said of inconveniences including bulldozers, torn up sidewalks, street closings, dirt, noise and water shutoffs that caused problems for existing downtown business owners and their customers.
The couple, who raised their family in Cumberland, have a positive view of the downtown project and economic growth for the city and county.
That progress won’t happen without continued partnerships between local and state government, they said.
“It’s vital,” Suzanne D’Atri said. To build community and provide second chances, the couple have hired people from the Union Rescue Mission to work at their Columbia Street eatery.
They had to let some of those employees go, and others quit, due to drug addiction.
Although homelessness, substance abuse, mental illness and poverty in the area often create a tragic cycle, the D’Atris also have success stories of workers who thrived.
“We need (more) economic development, industry you can rely on,” Mike D’Atri said of the need for jobs that pay a livable wage.
He recalled the 1960s and ’70s when business in Allegany County was booming.
Like countless other Cumberland natives, he’s nostalgic about the past and hopeful for the future.
Mike D’Atri, who was born in 1952, stood at his new food service counter along a wall in the upcoming restaurant where the lunch counter was at G.C. Murphy when he was a kid.
“It’s a step back in time,” he said, “but a step forward.”
"*" indicates required fields
