Frostburg commission endorses free beta test of JMA’s '76 unboxed' historic-district platform

JMA Resources on Feb. 9 asked the Frostburg Historic District Commission to serve as a free beta test site for its historic-district management product, and the commission voted to recommend the city participate and to forward that recommendation to the mayor and council.

Lane Thompson, a JMA representative, described the cloud-based product — introduced on slides and the company’s website as “76 unboxed” — as a platform to create property files for every building in a historic district, show timelines and historical photos, centralize application workflows, and provide a public-facing virtual tour. “This product is called 76 unboxed,” Thompson said during the presentation, explaining the tool is GIS-driven and intended to allow administrators, commission members, historians and property owners to share vetted historical records and streamline review processes.

Thompson said the product’s first internal increment was slated to finish March 1, with a commercial public launch planned for June 1. He also described optional municipal features such as a municipality-controlled advertising tile that cities could enable to generate local revenue.

JMA asked Frostburg to act as a test community in exchange for free access during the testing period. The company said it would help prepopulate data, assist with photo collection, and run workshops with staff and property owners to validate data loads and workflow before the public release.

After questions and a discussion about data loading, privacy controls and the role of local historians, a commissioner moved that Frostburg enter into an agreement with JMA to be a test program for the product. The motion was seconded and commissioners present voted affirmatively; the chair said the commission would recommend the city participate and that staff would present the recommendation to the mayor and council.

Thompson left business cards and information and asked the commission to perform due diligence; JMA said it had already invested $1.5 million in the project and planned to continue its commercial rollout with Frostburg and Mechanicsburg as sister test communities.

Next steps identified at the meeting included staff coordination on scheduling data uploads, a follow-up workshop to collect photos and content, and JMA returning in a short timeframe to begin hands-on testing.