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Trade bypasses Hughesville
Business owners report slim pickings as traffic now goes around the village
Friday, July 10, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by EMILY BARNES
Jim Crawford, manager of Habitat for Humanity's ReStore in Hughesville, hands bifold doors to customer Norm Fletcher of Calvert County so he can load them into his truck. The store, which sells donated building materials to raise money for the housing charity, is struggling to attract customers, Crawford said.
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More than two years have passed since the opening of the Hughesville bypass, and the blessing for commuters might turn out to be a curse for business owners in the small town.
Terry Lane, owner of Lane's Uniforms, said the bypass's impact was instant and devastating.
"We've been here more than six years and the moment they started building the bypass business fell by 50 percent," Lane said.
To make up for the lost customers, Lane, who sells medical scrubs, has been making the rounds to doctor's offices to promote his wares, offering coupons and teaming up with a weight-loss program for employees of Calvert Memorial Hospital in Prince Frederick to keep his store in the public eye. It would be too expensive to move somewhere more visible, he said.
Even charity shops are feeling the pinch.
"The business climate in Hughesville is dismal at best, and you can quote me on that," said Jim Crawford, manager of the town's ReStore, which sells second-hand building supplies to raise money for a local Habitat for Humanity chapter.
The shop has no shortage of donations, but lags behind similar stores in selling them, he said.
"We have wonderful donations, very generous, gracious donations, but our sales are really way, way under what other ReStores are doing because we just don't have the traffic," he said. The store's sales are less than a third of those enjoyed by a ReStore in Lexington Park, and are even markedly behind ReStores in other areas that are also in their first year of operation.
"I think hometown America needs a respectable business presence. No dirty industries — we're not trying to put in a smog-producing factory here, just local Americana, everyday businesses," Crawford said.
ReStore volunteer Michael Stainbrook sells costume jewelry and other goods at the Bargain Barn on weekends, and says the numerous small vendors in the former tobacco sale barn are suffering, too.
"For us it went really downhill when they started the bypass. Thank God for regular customers, the ones who know you're there," Stainbrook said.
The manager of the town's Sunoco gas station and its Blimpie restaurant put a good face on things, saying, "We're OK," but adding that sales fell 50 percent after the bypass began. The restaurant scrapes by serving locals, having lost the patronage of commuters, said Khan, who only uses one name.
"You can see here, we lost customers but we're trying to survive," Khan said, waving at a relatively empty parking lot. "There's no choice."
Debbie Cochrane, office manager for Alan's Factory Outlet, painted an even more dire picture, saying the bypass has been an unmitigated catastrophe for the seller of gazebos and other lawn accessories. The business has written a letter to U.S. Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md. 5th), House majority leader, pleading for help for what she calls a "ghost town."
"I can just tell you there ain't no business in Hughesville now," she said. "… Watch out for those weeds that roll across the desert, those tumbleweeds. That's what I'm expecting to see roll across here. That's how bad it's gotten."
But the news is not so bleak for everyone.
Philip Jett, owner of Hughesville Auto Body, said business is booming despite the recession. The shop is 40 years old and has plenty of loyal customers, he said.
If anything, the bypass has made trade better "because you can get in and out [of town] without taking your life into your hands," Jett said.
Likewise Don Smolinski, owner of All American Harley-Davidson and several investment properties in the town, blamed the recession, not the bypass, for a modest decline in business. But the motorcycle dealership is at the end of the bypass, and other businesses in the town's interior are struggling more, he said. At least one of his tenants is having trouble paying rent on time, while another is decamping to Prince Frederick.
"But the interior of Hughesville is like no-man's-land; the businesses are really suffering," Smolinski said. Sales by small vendors in the Bargain Barn, which he also owns, are down by about 35 percent, he guessed.
"We'll just have to dig in and do the best we can," he said.
A destination
Michelle's Quilt Shop moved to Hughesville from the outskirts of Prince Frederick less than a year ago, and its owner says she has no trouble getting customers in the door. She attributes her success to having a dedicated customer base and to the nature of her business, which is not as dependent on clients who wander in off the street on a whim.
"This is a destination store," Michelle Scordos said, meaning that her customers will set out for Hughesville to patronize her business.
A quilt shop is also a good fit for an old town like Hughesville, while she makes the best of what the town has to offer, doing a lot of business with patrons of the Harley-Davidson dealership nearby. She stocks fabric with flames and other motifs and does a brisk business sewing patches onto motorcycle jackets, she said.
"There's quite a few quilters who ride motorcycles. Or women will come here while men hang out at the Harley-Davidson shop. Then they say, ‘You got some parts. Well, I need some fabric,'" Scordos said.
Still, it would be nice if more people could see the store from the road. Like many of the entrepreneurs along Old Leonardtown Road, she longs to erect signs at the ends of the bypass to let the fast-moving traffic know they are there.
But when she tried it, Charles County threatened her with a $1,000 fine, according to her husband, Bill Minor.
"It's pretty tough to get you to know we're here," she said.
"We're just in shock we can't put any signs on the road," said Lane, the uniform seller.
Joe Lehan, the county's public information officer, responded to an inquiry about vendor signs but did not provide information on the subject by press time.
George L. Robertson, director of economic development and tourism for the county, said luring commuters back to Hughesville isn't likely, and high-profile chain businesses are also unlikely to consider the town as a location.
"Getting a commuter off the road — I don't know of any place that's been successful. The market area [for Hughesville] … I think right now, what you would call their true retail market area is about 2,500 people. If you say ‘main street' Hughesville, that's the population it serves," Robertson said.
Instead, he hopes the town will retool to serve employees of Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative, which is headquartered in Hughesville. The county will conduct a survey of these employees to learn what goods and services they would appreciate in the town, to help local businesses conform to demand.
Robertson said some local entrepreneurs have unrealistic hopes for the town.
"I've heard people in Hughesville talk about, ‘Let's become an art center.' You don't do that easily," he said. "The critical mass of business you have to have is quite a bit before you start getting people to come from any distance. I've tried to be realistic with them on what is really doable."
