Four businesses on H Street NE received grants this morning that District officials hope will boost daytime retail on the corridor, which is bustling any given evening, but much quieter when the sun is up.
Mayor Vince Gray and Councilmember Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) presented awards totaling $330,400 to a pharmacy, a yoga studio and a pair of clothing stores that are angling to grow their operations as the Atlas District evolves into supporting what Wells called “five-minute living.” (The notion that all of one’s needs are located within walking distance.)
The growth of H Street is “one of the most remarkable renaissances of any business corridor in the country,” Wells said at the presentation at the Atlas Performing Arts Center. “One of the things that’s been missing is daytime retail,” he said.
As he often does, Gray reminisced about growing up just a few blocks away from the H Street strip, mentioning a high-school job bagging groceries at a Safeway.
The grant recipients, though, are much smaller than a supermarket. The H Street NE Retail Priority Area Project is a $1.25 million program by the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development that aims to help small businesses in the neighborhood expand their storefronts and hours of operations.
First to receive a grant was Stan’s Inc., a clothing store at 822 H Street NE that provides uniforms for employees of D.C. agencies. Stan’s has a long institutional memory of the neighborhood, first opening downtown in 1947, and moving to H Street in 1978. The store’s owner, Leon Robbins, said the $85,000 grant would help pay for renovations and the addition of a women’s line.
The Studio Group, which operates a Bikram yoga studio at 410 H Street NE, received $83,400, which owner Elizabeth Glover says will allow her to add a collection of yoga supplies and expand her hours beyond 30 minutes before classes. Gray noted that Glover, who opened her studio in 2006, has played host to a few notable customers—the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., Lady Gaga and D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown.
Almost intuitively, Brown arrived at the grant presentation and talked about how he’s been going to the hot yoga classes there since 2007. He said he wore sweatpants and a sweatshirt to the class, which is held in a room heated to 105 degrees.
“You must be new,” Brown said a more seasoned yoga enthusiast told him. Since then, Brown said, he’s gotten his whole staff into the activity, to which he now wears more comfortable attire. (Lady Gaga, Glover said, did her yoga sessions in her skivvies, to which Brown remarked, “You can catch Lady Gaga in her underwear!” as one of the features of the exercise routine.)
Also receiving grants were H Street Care Pharmacy and Wellness Center at 812 H Street NE and The C.A.T. Walk Boutique at 1404 H Street NE, both of which opened in 2010.
Carolyn A. Thomas, the clothing shop’s eponymous owner, was visibly moved as she accepted her $80,000 award, which she said will help make her store more hospitable. She described a recent day in which two of her employees left early because the store was too drafty in the cold weather.
“This grant is going to make me be able to put in new heating and flooring and make it more welcoming,” she said.
Jose C. Sousa, the communications director for the Office of PlanningDMPED, said the grant applicants needed to “demonstrate what they’d be spending it on” and that the amounts awarded are just a fraction of any expansions or improvements the winning businesses are seeking to make.
A second round of applications for the grant program closed last week and will be presented in March, Sousa said.
Correction: This article originally identified Jose C. Sousa as the communications director for the D.C. Office of Planning. He is communications director for the Office of the Deputy Mayor of Planning and Economic Development.
