Why is Friendship heights shopping district so ... unsatisfying?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I heard a rumor that the Chevy chase pavilion building is shifting away from retail and going to become a medical building/docs offices.

I was so sad when H & M closed.

Not a rumor. The Pavilion's owner is actively trying to do this and is trying to change the zoning without any public input:

https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2019/04/24/chevy-chase-pavilion-faces-opposition-on-medical.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Westbrook Montgomery (aka, the ghost town near Cabin John park).

You must mean Westfield Montgomery, also known as Montgomery Mall. If you call it a ghost town, you can't be the least bit familiar with it. That in turn makes me wonder how much you really know about the other DC-area places you mention.

You're right about the name; thanks for the gracious correction. But I'll stand by my characterization of the mall as a ghost town -- compare to Tyson's for example. And, I've lived in CCMD, just a 10-minute walk from FH Metro for 20 years, so I think I do know quite a bit about the area.

Are you confusing that mall with White Flint, which was torn down 3 years ago? Westfield Montgomery does brisk business year round.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Westbrook Montgomery (aka, the ghost town near Cabin John park).

You must mean Westfield Montgomery, also known as Montgomery Mall. If you call it a ghost town, you can't be the least bit familiar with it. That in turn makes me wonder how much you really know about the other DC-area places you mention.

You're right about the name; thanks for the gracious correction. But I'll stand by my characterization of the mall as a ghost town -- compare to Tyson's for example. And, I've lived in CCMD, just a 10-minute walk from FH Metro for 20 years, so I think I do know quite a bit about the area.

Are you confusing that mall with White Flint, which was torn down 3 years ago? Westfield Montgomery does brisk business year round.

There are queues for parking spaces whenever I go on the weekend. PP either has an agenda or went at 8:45 on a Tuesday in March.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is OP. Not a big shopper for fun so trust me this isn’t about my retail needs! But I am over there quite a bit — to see movies, get pizza or chain family dinners, go to gap and j crew and pop in to one of the department stores or brooks brothers a couple times a year. So it does get plenty of my business; I just wish it were more interesting/enjoyable place to walk around.

That plaza by Bloomingdales was a missed opportunity — kind of dead — and the tiny pan quotidian is weird, tho at least now there is a coffee shop too

Every time you think about going there, do something else. Problem solved.

[Anonymous]

My opinion on this is that it's too car oriented. Personally I like to walk around retail areas that have narrower, slower roads going through them. At FH I feel like I am always 6 lanes of traffic away from where I want to be.

Of course the tradeoff is that you end up with log jams like M St in Georgetown, but as a person who walks more than they drive, it doesn't bother me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think part of it is design/architecture issues. It doesn’t *feel* appealing, somehow.

this is the answer. it's got a pretty decent concentration of stuff, but it's not appealing at all to walk around. the cars are whizzing by, the buildings are not very attractive, there's nothing interesting to see or do as you are walking from one building to another. it all feels very disjointed. and the parking situation is confusing and kind of a pain. just bad urban planning/design. maybe some kind of sidewalk vendors would be nice. or a xmas market in the open space in front of bloomingdales with a few vendors selling jewelry, crafts, donuts . . .

+1. It doesn't have the pedestrian-friendly feel of 14th ST or Georgetown. That area isn't designed in an aesthetically appealing way, poor urban planning, and it's not a fun destination to go to. The times I go there, it's to visit a specific store. I go there then go home. Like pp said, there's nothing interesting to see or do other than go to the store to get the items on your list. You're not passing cute outdoor cafes, boutiques, or artists selling their wares on the sidewalk.

Not sure what could be done at this point, but it does feel like a wasted opportunity to provide a retail/destination spot up here.

[Anonymous]

FH is more of a L&T and Saks kind of place to shop - it's old fashioned money looking for old fashioned tastes. There's not a big crowd of Tiffany/Bulgari/Gucci types in that area. There are in downtown DC, though and it's not even close.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Westbrook Montgomery (aka, the ghost town near Cabin John park).

You must mean Westfield Montgomery, also known as Montgomery Mall. If you call it a ghost town, you can't be the least bit familiar with it. That in turn makes me wonder how much you really know about the other DC-area places you mention.

You're right about the name; thanks for the gracious correction. But I'll stand by my characterization of the mall as a ghost town -- compare to Tyson's for example. And, I've lived in CCMD, just a 10-minute walk from FH Metro for 20 years, so I think I do know quite a bit about the area.

Are you confusing that mall with White Flint, which was torn down 3 years ago? Westfield Montgomery does brisk business year round.

Nope, not confused. I actually worked at Bloomingdale's WF as a Christmas job when I was in HS. We just disagree about what constitute "brisk business".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FH is more of a L&T and Saks kind of place to shop - it's old fashioned money looking for old fashioned tastes. There's not a big crowd of Tiffany/Bulgari/Gucci types in that area. There are in downtown DC, though and it's not even close.

Saks and L&T are both on the ropes. That aside, however, they have a very different merch mix and customer demographics.

[Anonymous]

All the high-end stuff moved to CityCenter, leaving the MoCo portion kind of barren (they're putting more restaurants there, though, at least according to the signs they've put up).

I've lived in DC for 26 years and walkable to FH for like 10 of those years and I don't think I've ever purchased anything at Mazza other than a movie ticket and maybe a few meals at the McDonald's. Maybe something when Williams-Sonoma was in there. How some of those perpetually empty stores stay in business is just a mystery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No location is keeping retail. Look at Cleveland Park, Glover Park, Georgetown. Empty storefronts and rapid turnover in the occupied spaces. We like Amazon, but this is the result.

The cost of commercial real estate in those places might be a factor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All the high-end stuff moved to CityCenter, leaving the MoCo portion kind of barren (they're putting more restaurants there, though, at least according to the signs they've put up).

I've lived in DC for 26 years and walkable to FH for like 10 of those years and I don't think I've ever purchased anything at Mazza other than a movie ticket and maybe a few meals at the McDonald's. Maybe something when Williams-Sonoma was in there. How some of those perpetually empty stores stay in business is just a mystery.

I remember shopping there in the 90s and buying a few items at Williams Sonoma. Never got anything at the mall but wasn't for a lack of trying. I wouldn't say its gone downhill, I just don't think it was ever that great a place to shop.

When it opened a zillion years ago, people thought it was very upscale.

[Anonymous]

I was thinking about this thread while walking home northward on Wisconsin Avenue from FH metro tonight. I think everything is there, structurally, to make it a more exciting place. Sidewalks, storefronts, transportation. Wisconsin being a through vehicular street shouldn't be an issue. People shop on busy streets in cities.

The landlords have to bring in a better mix of tenants, however they incentivize such things. They could also get together to decorate the street and make it more inviting. The Collection at Chevy Chase has tried to create a more open environment in their off-street enclave, but it sure didn't look inviting on my cold walk home tonight. Maybe they need more lights and less dignity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mazza is going to be torn down.

Really? When?

The building was purchased by a Pension fund that has a history of re-developing properties.

But the movie theater is about to get a multi-million dollar renovation.

The parking lot behind Mazza is hung up by a weird option to build lease that IIRC expires in like 2025 so it is pretty unlikely anything is happening with Mazza in the next few years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard a rumor that the Chevy chase pavilion building is shifting away from retail and going to become a medical building/docs offices.

I was so sad when H & M closed.

Not a rumor. The Pavilion's owner is actively trying to do this and is trying to change the zoning without any public input:

https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2019/04/24/chevy-chase-pavilion-faces-opposition-on-medical.html

And the Zoning Commission promptly swatted down this request so it is no longer an active request.

The Pavilion really screwed up 10 years ago when they spent 35 million renovating the property. They jacked up the rents on a bunch of businesses that had been there for years including the Sport and Health that used to draw in a bunch of people from the neighborhood every day who would then spend money at Starbucks and CVS - some of the retail spaces they raised the rents on were never filled. And they had two Voltaggio businesses that were failures in short order.

Still the Starbucks, CVS,World Market & Cheesecake Factory all do very well there and the office tower and hotel in the complex are both very successful so the only explanation I can come up with is they are just asking for too much rent.