Maryland Launches $25M Incentive Program To Fill Vacant Retail, Commercial Spaces

Maryland has launched a $25 million initiative aimed at providing financial incentives for small businesses and developers to put vacant retail and commercial space to use.

Gov. Larry Hogan announced the program, dubbed Project Restore, in Berlin, Maryland on Monday as part of a five-day tour of the Eastern Shore. The program will offer rental grants and sales tax relief rebates for businesses that begin new or expanded operations in spaces that have not been generating sales tax receipts for the past six months or more. Small businesses with 50 employees or less will also be eligible for additional benefits.

“Project Restore will help put more ‘open for business’ signs in storefront windows, create thousands of jobs, and transform neighborhoods and communities,” Hogan said in a statement. “This initiative is just one more shining example of how we aren’t just committed to fully recovering from this pandemic, we are committed to coming back stronger and better than ever before.”

Source: Maryland Launches $25M Incentive Program To Fill Vacant Retail, Commercial Spaces

A champion of the open floor plan envisions a more diverse post-pandem

As a longtime designer of office spaces for big companies such as Google, Microsoft, and the advertising firm TBWA\Chiat\Day, Los Angeles-based Clive Wilkinson Architects has helped define how offices around the world look and feel. One of its biggest innovations was a push toward the open office floor plan—the big, wallless room full of clicking and chattering desk workers that optimized the square footage of offices and democratized the workplace.

But for the actual office workers using those famous open offices, the experience has been less than ideal. They’re noisy and lack privacy, they reinforce sexist behavior, and they even make people quit their jobs.

Source: A champion of the open floor plan envisions a more diverse post-pandem

3 Prolific Artist Friendships That Changed the Course of Art History

Discover the captivating stories behind a few of the art world’s most famous and enduring friendships.

In the often-solitary life of an artist, it is rare to find a trustworthy peer to take on the role of confidante. And there’s a good reason why: critique, both internal and from others, is a never-ending obsession for an artist, whose livelihood is dependent on the personal outpouring of their craft. Indeed, it takes a very special sort of friendship between artists to persist through the highs and lows of their unique lifestyles and to overcome professional jealousy, easily bruised feelings, and, at times, differing opinions on what makes good art. 

Beth Phillips, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Francesco Clemente (1984) © Beth Phillips. Courtesy Galerie Bruno Bischofberger, Switzerland.

Source: http://bit.ly/3pGzY4O

Illuminated lines of icicles

Photograph by Ed Estes circa 2021

These maps show how the region’s population density has changed since 1970

This article was first published on July 26, 2019. It’s interesting to look back at the region’s history, so we are sharing it again. DC’s population…

These maps show how the region’s population density has changed since 1970