November 6, 2007
What Neighborhoods Want
Anyone who has spent time attending neighborhood association meetings in much of D.C. knows that 99.5 percent of the topics discussed there tend to revolve around the basic conceit that residents want a say in the kinds of businesses that are near them. More often than not that means putting pressure on existing businesses to operate in certain ways, but without a doubt a major topic of conversation at the meetings we've attended is also, how can we get the kinds of new businesses we really want and need to open?
Blogger about town Prince of Petworth spied this novel approach to recruiting a specific kind of business on 14th Street in Columbia Heights. Think it'll work? What kinds of businesses are you constantly wishing were in your neighborhood?
Photo by Prince of Petworth
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Well, as a resident of Mount Pleasant, I really want to see either a grocery store or a discount retailer come onto the strip, a laundromat would be alright, too. Anything to keep those dancing hooligans out.
a bagel shop
isnt this just about any neighborhood in NW?
It's all well and good to have a neighborhood wish list of stores you want. But eventually you have to come back to Planet Earth where small hardware stores are closing left and right, and independent bookstores are going the way of shoefitting fluoroscopes, spats, and human dignity. Because at current property and business tax rates, the only businesses that remain economically viable are national chains, expense account boutique restaurants, chichi furniture places, and designer clothes joints, and even some of those are struggling.
Ice cream parlor? WTF? How about a blacksmith while we're at it? Because damned if my old timey pennyfarthing didn't get a flat on the way to the box social, so hows I supposed to get there with an unshod clydesdale? And the countess had just gotten a fresh shipment of opium and raw ether, too! Aw, rasberries!
Good God we do need a quality family-run bagel shop in DC. We need the quality of Bethesda Bagels, something along those lines.
I'm in Mount Pleasant, and I'll tell you what we need. At least two Starbuckses and a WiFi Hookah Bar. OH! And a WINE STORE. D'you think Tryst will move up here too? Adams Morgan is so lame.
And could we please replace those dollar stores on Mt. Pleasant Street with two-dollar stores? I've got these Jeffersons burning a hole in my khakis pocket.
What Mount Pleasant really needs is a Laser Tag arena.
I see your Laser Tag arena a raise you a bar with a bb gun shooting gallery in the basement.
Huh. Monkey in the 3 years since I've lived in Washington 3 new small hardware stores have opened up. One in Logan Circle, one in Tenley Circle and one in Glover Park. I don't see how the rest of the god forsaken country can have small independent retail of the kind listed here -- but for some reason we must first and foremost believe in some sort of manifest destiny of blandness and do absolutely zero zoning and incubation of small local businesses.
Do you really think that neighbors put that sign up or the Long and Foster agent trying to unload the property. All the sign doing is highlighting some examples of what the store is zoned for; its not like a petition demanding the unalienable right of a Trader Joes.
This seems like one of those situations where people want to vote with their voices rather than with their dollars. As we all learned in basic Econ, this is capitalism and it's the dollar-votes that count.
That said, I invite anyone to prove me wrong. If you're willing to pay in advance--like a gym membership or Netflix--for your books, I'll open a great independent bookstore in Petworth.
Call it a pledge system. You pledge a certain amount per month. You pay that amount electronically on the 1st of the month (one year commitment). Then you're entitled to that much stuff from the bookstore for the month. You go over, you pay the difference. No rollover. Pledge longer than one year, you'll get an across-the-board discount.
Any takers? Who's willing to put his money where his mouth is? I've got experience in the bookselling biz, and I don't think it can be done in that part of the District without the guaranteed revenue. But with a decent guaranteed monthly income, I'm in.
DC1974,
I agree with you, DC and basically every other urban center, does have a market for "basics only" oriented hardware stores. However, it is a matter of time before Home Depot or Lowes catches on and starts their urban version of their box stores; once that happens, goodbye mom and pop.
as someone who lives, literally, around the corner from that sign, i would love to see a book store or ice cream parlor in that spot. however, i don't think the neighborhood could support such a business. we've got mostly hole-in-the-wall eateries my foodie self won't touch with a ten-foot pole, and the mocha hut down the street has been shuttered for over a year. 16th street heights can be a great neighborhood, but it hasn't had the influx of moneyed young professionals that u street/shaw and columbia heights has.
(also, i'd hate to see a bank in that spot, as it would add absolutely nothing to the neighborhood).
I would like to see all of those things in my neighborhood. Liquor stores and Chinese takeout are about the only businesses in the immediate area.
As a resident of Southwest Waterfront, my first wish would be something, hell, anything, in the way of commercial development that isn't offices or clubs for the bridge-and-tunnel crowd.
(Wish 1.1 would be for a supermarket that doesn't suck. Wish 1.2 would be for a bookstore, a coffee shop or a neighborhood tavern. Hell, I'd be fine with a national chain so long as it actually bothered to show up and sell things. For that matter, if sf wanted to open up a pledge-based bookstore in Southwest rather than Petworth, I'd sign up post-haste.)
I agree with RJ. I doubt this sign is part of some grassroots movement to get locally owned business in the neighorhood. More likely it's just an adverstisement placed by a real estate agent. I can't imagine anyone would be lobbying too hard for a bank or postal store. It's just a notice to PNC, Wachovia, FedEx-Kinko's, UPS Store that the neighborhood is up for sale.
And seriously, ice cream parlor? Really? Although, I'd give my left nut for a DQ to open in the city.
as a resident of Anacostia...well where do i start. a grocery store? probably too much to ask [and if you live in SW/waterfront..you should know that your safeway is about to be revamped so stop complainng]..anacostia has a thousand and one liquor stores, and we have churches [almost one on every corner and not one of the people that go to them live in my neighborhood]. there is nothing within walking distance except the metro and the bus stop. starbucks..thats funny. and wait..hold on..can i get a bagel shop? wtf!..how about some basic infrastructure for east of the river folks?
cminus,
"A long-delayed, multimillion-dollar plan to turn Waterside Mall in Southwest into a pedestrian friendly, mixed-used project broke ground yesterday, with a ceremonial gold-painted wrecking ball taking its first chunks out of the old shopping center."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/01/AR2007110102569.html
and if you live in SW/waterfront..you should know that your safeway is about to be revamped so stop complainng
I'll believe it when I see it, because right now I'm just as inclined to believe the developer is going to bulldoze the store to create more office space as I am to believe that we'll get a supermarket with all the amenities you'd expect from a rural Midwestern supermarket of the late 1980s.
But if we do get a non-sucky supermarket, hey, Wish 1.1 granted! Time to turn to Wish 1.2, and add Wish 1.3, which is a magical flying unicorn named Flutter-By who farts perfume and glitter.
theres something tricky about the waterside mall redevelopment.
the plans boast a large number of sq ft reserved for retail....
but then you see that that sq footage includes the existing safeway (which comprises about 75% of the retail sq footage of the project)
Get that absurd list out of the window and use the space as a temporary art gallery until your upscale retail dreams can come true.
About a decade from now.
Of course I know a check-cashing chain that can move in tomorrow. Or a nail parlor.
columbia heights is in desperate need of a post office.
please please
although that's hardly mom-and-pop storefront.
Mount Pleasant street needs at least 3 more American
cuisine joints and about 3 more dives with a pinball machine.
Please raze the zoo and install a ten-field yuppie kickball-and-softball complex. THAT WOULD BE SO AWESOME.
Don't you get it? The sign requests a neighborhood business that is ALL of those things in one: restaurant/ice cream parlor/hardware store/bookstore/bank/postal store.
Sounds like a magical place.
Petworth, eh? How 'bout a gun shop?
DC neighborhoods need more businesses like these, yet they can't seem to close them down fast enough. Home-grown small businesses are what add distinctiveness and flavor to a neighborhood, the kind that gets stripped away every time a homogenized chain enters the retail mix. Sure, they generate more tax revenue for city coffers, but they chip away at what makes neighborhoods distinctive. There's a reason why every strip mall in America looks like every other strip mall in America. Do people really want to apply that economic development model to an urban setting? What's DC doing to preserve a small business climate that's unique to DC?
As long as it doesn't end up looking like Georgetown or China town, I'm happy. If you travel to other major cities (NY, Boston, Philly, Toronto) you find stores and restaurants that aren't chains. For some reason (mostly the greedy real estate owners), we get the same crap in each neighborhood.
It's not just greedy real estate owners. Between the skyrocketing business and property taxes, the "same old crap" chains are the only ones who can afford to locate downtown. How many many more halfsmokes does Ben's have to sell when their tax rate quadruples? What about those businesses that aren't lucky enough to be "historic" enough to get a tax break?
Uh...we actually have an ice cream parlor in my neighborhood. OK, so the sitting space isn't entirely conducive to spending hours over your rootbeer float but it's there just the same. We also have a locally-owned coffee house and a hardware store that has every damn thing you could want except lumber. Point is: they survive because we spend our dollars in them.
I take back what I said about greedy real estate owners.
A friend just sent me a link to that article about the Childe Harold closing down. Sad - it was one of the few places in Dupont that felt like a neighborhood bar (all the crusty old men bent over their pints only added to the effect).
PS - that sign is not in columbia heights, but many blocks above the spring street, which divides columbia heights from 16th street heights. specifically, 14th between decatur and crittenden streets.