Frederick County Office of Economic Development

While Fast Track has been around for some time, within the past two years the entire process has been redefined. Frederick County’s Office of Economic Development (OED) and the Division of Planning and Permitting formed a unique, advantageous partnership to debut an enhanced and improved Fast Track Permitting and Turbo Fast Track Permitting. These economic development tools are being used to expedite projects while adhering to all established standards.

The process has been a huge differentiator to attract significant new projects to Frederick County, such as Kite, a Gilead Company, biologics manufacturing facility and Kroger’s robotic distribution center.

“When a business is trying to make an important decision about where best to locate their facility, timing and speed to market is incredibly important,” said Beth Woodring, director of business attraction and marketing in the OED. “...It is one of reasons we’ve had an increase of prospects looking at Frederick County because they know our County can deliver what it says it can deliver.”

The process starts a partnership between county government and a business on the right foot. “This is one of the first steps to creating that long-term relationship,” Woodring said.

Dan Kovolisky, Kroger’s network strategy project manager, applauded the ability of Frederick County to deliver on its promises.

“The County has been really supportive to the team through the entire permit process and have lived up to the ‘turbo fast track process’ and ensuring they do not deviate from that commitment,” he said. “Through bi-weekly meetings, quick response time on all requests, and helpful comments/call outs before documents are formally submitted, the project is moving forward as fast as we were hoping, which will set us up for success.”

Gary Hessong works directly with the Fast Track projects and has said “the fast track initiative has been an incredible partnership between the Division of Planning and Permitting and the Office of Economic Development. More importantly, together, we are providing planning and permitting services that are predictable, timely, accountable and collaborative. We are very proud to be a small part of the successes of the many projects that are benefitting from this initiative.”

Pictured: From Frederick County Division of Planning and Permitting: Ashlye Bonomo, manager of permitting services and deputy director Gary Hessong; from the Frederick County Office of Economic Development: Beth Woodring, director of business attraction and marketing and Troy Bolyard, senior business attraction manager.