Can this woman make ‘downtown’ Owings Mills a thing?

Tierra Gardner wasn’t trying to start an online trend. She just wanted to poke fun at how popular Don Tigre Mexican Cantina, her favorite after-work hangout in Baltimore County, had become.

“And I will never forgive y’all for telling everybody up on this TikTok about my favorite place in downtown Owings Mills,” she said in a TikTok video posted last month.

A downtown? In Owings Mills?

Gardner’s surprising declaration was an inside joke aimed at her friends. She had no idea it would go viral locally, gaining thousands of views.

Confusion and curiosity reigned among the nearly hundred.

“Wtf is a downtown Owings mills.”

“Owings mills got a downtown?”

“I didn’t know OM had a downtown.”

As that video got traction, Gardner fanned the flames by making others about “downtown,” including one with an AI-generated map of it and some in which she refers to herself as the mayor of Owings Mills.

A downtown is vaguely defined as a main business district or central part of a city or town. What that looks like varies for each community. Even Baltimore residents can’t come to a consensus on their downtown.

Some Maryland suburbs can more clearly claim to have a downtown: Silver Spring, Columbia and Towson among them.

Owings Mills is a majority-Black suburb along Interstate 795 with about 36,000 residents, most of them in their 20s to 40s and earning above the county’s median household income, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates.

The northwest county suburb is home to many of the Ravens’ players and staff, as well as the team’s headquarters and training facility. T. Rowe Price, the Baltimore City-based global investment management firm, has a big presence. Stevenson University opened a campus there in 2004.

It’s notably the final stop on the subway line linking the county to downtown Baltimore.

Gardner, a 33-year-old Woodlawn native, has lived in Owings Mills for seven years and picked it as her home because it’s close to her job at a beauty supply store. The mix of luxury apartments and retail was a large part of the appeal, she said.

And then she fell in love with Don Tigre Mexican Cantina at Brookside Commons. After work or on her days off, she orders her signature combo: a steak quesadilla (no onions) and a Cozy Cadillac margarita (no rim).

Gardner’s assessment of an Owings Mills downtown isn’t far off from how the area was sold to residents in the late 1990s.

Baltimore County Councilman Julian Jones, the Democratic candidate for county executive, has spent much of his political career advocating for dense development in the center of the suburb.

He said there’s “absolutely” a “downtown” Owings Mills, and the area was intentionally developed that way.

To him, “downtown” Owings Mills is composed of the “Triple Crown”: Metro Centre, Foundry Row and Mill Station.

Since it opened in 1986, Owings Mills Mall, anchored by Macy’s, JCPenney, Saks Fifth Avenue and Sears, had been the area’s commercial heart. The next year, a nearby Metro station opened, linking the ’burb with Baltimore.

By the 1990s, Baltimore County officials wanted to develop around those amenities, pitching a “Main Street hub,” according to reports at the time.

The project stalled, but David S. Brown Enterprises, the Owings Mills-based commercial and residential development firm, took it over in 2007.

The Metro Centre development opened in 2012 — the county’s first transit-oriented community. It included midrise buildings for a new Baltimore County Public Library branch and a center for the Community College of Baltimore County, along with offices, residences and retail space.

But even as Metro Centre was under construction, the Owings Mills Mall was spiraling. Much like Towson Town Center now, it was losing tenants and contending with declining conditions and a negative perception of safety. The mall closed in 2015 and was demolished the following year.

Kimco Realty Co., a New York-based real estate investment trust, turned the 1 million-square-foot property into an open-air shopping center. Mill Station opened in 2019 with a Costco, a Lowe’s and a Dick’s Sporting Goods.

Meanwhile, the Solo Cup Company manufacturing plant was demolished in 2013 and replaced with Foundry Row, a 900,000-square-foot mixed-use development that includes a Wegmans and an Old Navy.

Jones said developing and redeveloping Owings Mills is vital because of its distance from other business hubs. Baltimore is roughly 30 minutes away. Towson, another downtown-esque area in Baltimore County, is around 15 miles away.

Owings Mills has what most would consider the necessary ingredients for a downtown: grocery stores, retail shopping, hotels, restaurants and mass transit.

It’s even walkable for some residents, including Gardner.

Her beloved Owings Mills is missing one thing, Gardner said: “You don’t have to leave downtown Owings Mills for anything — except for a late-night good time.”

There are no nightclubs or lounges. The Greene Turtle Sports Bar & Grille and The Tillery are the only restaurants and bars open past midnight.

Gardner said she’d like a 30-and-older lounge that’s open late, with finger foods and inexpensive drinks.

Something like that could exist in the future. The north side of Metro Centre has yet to be developed, said Noah Adler, a commercial leasing associate at David S. Brown Enterprises.

Adler said Gardner’s videos have touched off a fun trend — though even he acknowledges there’s no official downtown.

“To me, a downtown is a place where you don’t necessarily need a car, and you can spend a day, and live and walk around,” Adler said. He paused and reflected. “In that sense, I do think it is a downtown.”

Despite overwhelming support online, Gardner’s videos have attracted a few mean comments. Some have reposted her videos, calling her and her concept dumb, she said.

Those people, she added, don’t need to be in on her thing.

“You’re not part of downtown Owings Mills anyway,” she said.