>> The 1930s-era Hecht's building in Northeast has been bought by a Philadelphia developer who plans to incorporate the historic structure into a new retail hub off New York Avenue. [WaPo] >> D.C.’s State Education Office established new criteria for free- and reduced-price-meal programs in an effort to increase enrollment. [Examiner] >> Construction has begun on Alexandria's 167-acre Potomac Yard development. [Washington Business Journal] >> The death of musician Casey Calvert last month outside......

A Post business columnist and an independent music non-profit have joined the chorus questioning Live Nation's proposal for a Silver Spring music hall. Last Friday, Steven Pearlstein wrote that while I.M.P. boss Seth Hurwitz has fought against competition for his 9:30 Club before, and his alternative proposal to Live Nation is in his own best interest, "he's put forward a financial proposal attractive enough that county officials cannot ignore it." Under their non-binding letter of......

>> Maryland police apprehended the prisoner who stole an officer's gun and escaped from custody from a Laurel hospital. [WTOP] >> Shortly after abandoning his run for the White House, Stephen Colbert ended up in a three-way tie for a seat on the Colonial Soil and Water Conservation District Board in Williamsburg. Sadly, he won't be able to serve if selected by a hat draw (seriously), because he's not a registered voter in the......

Zipcar and Flexcar, D.C.'s two most popular car-sharing companies, announced they are merging Wednesday. Emails to customers of both companies directed them to an announcement on Zipcar's website. "The combined company will provide our members with increased benefits and improve our ability to expand into new markets," said Zipcar CEO Scott Griffith in the statement. The new company will operate under the Zipcar name, and while the pricing plans are still being hammered out, they......

The Washington Business Journal reported yesterday that the Washington Convention Center will be officially renamed to honor D.C.'s first elected mayor, Walter E. Washington. Apparently the D.C. Council approved the name change last year, though we can't recall having heard about it at the time. The idea is a fine one though, and Washington is certainly worthy of having his legacy honored. So what's the problem? As of Nov. 5, the building will officially become......

We had heard rumors that Apple had settled on purchasing 1229 Wisconsin Ave. NW in Georgetown, but the Washington Business Journal confirmed the news on Friday. The building, sold on Sept. 27 to Apple Inc., is currently occupied by French Connection. The manager at French Connection had still not been told about the deal as of the middle of last week. Initial rumors of a Georgetown Apple store had been focused on the space where......

Many neighborhoods in the District tend to go through a rather predictable routine. They start as fringe areas, slowly attract residents and business owners looking for good deals on housing and commercial properties, see an influx of newcomers as word spreads, and soon become the city's next hot destination. And throughout the process the usual conflicts tend to emerge -- between old and new residents, between local and national businesses. Yesterday the rather tranquil Barracks......

Rockville based chain California Tortilla has reached a milestone. According to Washington Business Journal, the chain has sold 5 million burritos. 5 million! I prefer to say they've sold 5 megaburritos, but whatever floats your boat. The big winner of a year's worth of indigestion, er, delicious goodness, was college student John Baroody of Herndon, Virginia, who purchased number V at the Ashburn Village store. Congratulations, John! I'm sure your feelings at the moment of......

We kid. Kind of. According to the Washington Business Journal, the Uline Ice Arena and the surrounding area may be the next frontier in development in the District. The arena, which is just north of Union Station and hosted the first Beatles concert in the U.S. in 1964, is being looked at by developer Douglas Jemal as the anchor for a new entertainment district along the lines of the popular East End/Verizon Center area. While......

More grist for the mill of discontent among some Adams Morgan residents over the state of 18th Street, right on the heels of D.C. Council action that could limit the number of tavern licenses in the neighborhood. The Washington Business Journal reports that an unholy trifecta of daiquiris, skin and chicken wings is moving in to the space formerly occupied by the controversial after hours spot, Santa Rosa. The new bar, to be named Splash,......

One more report was released today letting us know what we already knew: The Washington, D.C. metro area is the richest, most-educated city in the country. Washington Business Journal reports on the Greater Washington Initiative annual report (you can download the whole thing here if you're willing to part with a little bit of personal information). Our region had the highest median household income in 2006 among metro areas, at $74,600, and nearly 46 percent......

Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. You have to love the really idiosyncratic corners of a city. The hundred year-old oddities with rich histories and lovely faces that look wholly out of place amid more recent arrivals. The Warehouse Theater is just such a place. Sitting quiet and unassuming on a small stretch of 7th Street NW near the hulking new Washington Convention Center, the Warehouse has been......

Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. Joe Englert wants a parking garage. So it says in the Washington Business Journal, on page four of a six page testament to the change he’s helping spread along H Street NE, once one of the District’s proudest thoroughfares and now in the midst of a facelift. When he hasn’t been opening businesses there himself, it seems he’s been grooming and instructing......

From the Associated Press via WTOP:The top editor of the Washington Business Journal was found dead at his home Monday. John McCalla was 38. A spokeswoman for the D.C. medical examiner says the cause of death would be determined pending further tests. Our readers may remember McCalla best as a perennial nominee in Fishbowl DC's Hottest Media contest. It's a tragic loss for local journalism, and we at DCist express our sympathies to his family,......

D.C. Battles It Out In The Kitchen One of Washington's best food events, the Capital Food Fight, is a little over a week away, and I expect there is wanton smack-talking between the competition's 10 food-fighters. Bebo's Roberto Donna, Mie n Yu's Tim Elliot, Kinkead's Bob Kinkead, last year's winner Ris Lacoste, Jamie Leeds of Hank's Oyster Bar, Taberna del Alabardero's Santi Zabaleta, John Wabeck of Firefly, IndeBleu's Vikram Garg, Anthony Chittum from Notti Bianche,......

Back to the feeding trough, all. After spending a weekend in the beautiful and delicious Bay Area, it's nice to be back to the reality of dirty campaigning, impossible political prognostications, and the constant braying that the turrists are going to blow us up. I wouldn't be here if I didn't love it… Restaurants in Anacostia? Is it time to put a sit down restaurant in the middle of Anacostia? That's the question Washington Business......

Well, we suppose it makes sense. Just like a store-owner wouldn't want customers to use their products without actually buying them, the Washington Business Journal is going all Wall Street Journal on us and putting their online content behind a door open only to print subscribers. As of Monday, July 24, the city's business publication of note will no longer be a resource for freeloaders like us. Phooey. Are we going to pay to......

We've discussed neighborhood naming on this site in the past; hokey sounding appelations are fine if they have some historical roots, it seems, but blatant attempts to ape famous hoods in other towns are to be scorned. Mercilessly. But the message has not been gotten in Prince George's County, home also to the Disneyscape rising at the planned National Harbor. According to the Washington Business Journal, Wood Partners, a Vienna based development company, are constructing......

You have to step back from D.C. occasionally to see how significantly the look of the city is changing in a short space of time. Large scale change spans the District, from new construction in the West End north of Foggy Bottom, to the cranes remaking Columbia Heights, to the new buildings stretching east from downtown toward the rising office towers at New York and Florida Avenues. Just outside the city, the massive National Harbor......

The Washington Business Journal reported this morning Monday that Carpool on Fairfax Drive will be torn down in favor of building something the Arlington area clearly needs more of — condos. D.C.-based Donohoe is behind the plans to replace the billiards hall with a 232,500-square-foot mixed-use development of condominiums and retail outlets. Over at Pygmalion in a Blanket, the Nabob sums up our feelings about the news far better than we could: Where does one......

It's just not a good time to be in local media. The Post has had its share of labor disputes and forced resignations, WJLA has been accused of ignoring worker rights, and now unionized employees at NBC 4 might go on strike. The Washington Business Journal yesterday reported that 2,500 workers at four NBC Universal-owned television stations, local affiliate NBC 4 included, have voted to authorize a strike over a contract that expired in March......

Well, not really. But the former Playboy model and current gold digger could probably find a wealthy and willing suitor if she wanted to. According to an article in the Washington Business Journal, the Washington region ranks fourth in the nation in terms of the number of wealthy residents it has. Reads the article: Metropolitan Washington has 247,219 residents with a net worth of more than $1 million, and 356,430 folks with a net worth......

It was a tantalizing prospect. The news that Walter Reed Army Medical Center would close in 2011 had District residents and officials dreaming of the possible uses for the 113 acres of land located between 16th Street and Georgia Avenue in residential Northwest Washington. Getting their hands on the land was always a longshot, however, and news organizations are reporting today that the Feds have lowered the boom on the idea -- deciding instead to......

Washington has become all the rage in the Hollywood set; whether they're trying to establish their public policy bona fides or soak their late husbands for millions of bucks, the beautiful people (and Michael Douglas) have been showering the District with unprecedented favoritism. So I suppose it should come as no surprise that the strangest and most untentionally hilarious of movie star trappings, the Church of Scientology, should be doing a booming Washington business. So......

Yesterday, Mayor Williams joined other D.C. officials, Nationals players, and members of the new Nats ownership group in picking up a few baseball bat shovels and breaking ground on the South Capitol Street baseball stadium. It was a welcome moment for many Washingtonians, a relief, you might say, for we all remember how many hard fought battles took place to get the city to that moment. We all saw the public fights over bringing the......

Yesterday, we noted that legislative efforts to force Comcast's hand on airing MASN broadcasts of Nationals games were picking up steam. Sure enough, the D.C. Council considered and passed emergency legislation sponsored by Jack Evans and Vincent Orange that requires Comcast to air those broadcasts or renegotiate its franchise agreement with the District. According to the Washington Business Journal, the legislation will become official in two weeks, barring a mayoral veto. Of course, that could......

Local corporate darlings XM Satellite Radio announced yesterday that their first quarter revenues were up over 100 percent compared to last year, but the company's stock fell over 5 percent on Thursday, as the company revealed it was under investigation by the FTC based on, according to the Washington Business Journal, "its marketing and telemarketing activities, billing practices and customer complaints." Any XM subscribers in the DCist audience? Have you been getting harrassed recently?......

It’s spring, the season for all those bare tree branches to sprout gorgeous green leaves, for daffodils to pop up along Dupont Circle, for those of us with a green thumb to try and flex it in any way we can. For the past few years, Joe Carmack's Garden District store on 14th Street has been one of those places ready to help city gardeners get primed with perfect plants for the season. The store's......

Vace, 2Amys, Italian Store, Pizzeria Paradiso, Matchbox, and Radius. Finally, Washingtonians have a choice as to where to go for good pizza. Some old-school residents haven’t needed a new place though, since their pizza craving has been satiated for the past 50 years by A.V. Ristorante Italiano. Rarely, however, is it nominated as the city’s best pizza, nor is it mentioned as the place to go for authentic red sauce Italian fare. Except, of course,......

It's already been a busy year for development in the corridor of land that stretches from Bryant Street north along North Capitol to Catholic University. DCist has kept a close eye on the debate between residents of the nearby neighborhoods (of Park View, Petworth, and Brookland) and the Armed Forces Retirement Home, which intends to open portions of its massive campus to commercial and residential development. Green space has been a part of that discussion,......