First Johnson's, now Sullivan's! Who is the landlord behind this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The next time AU asks for new building permits etc, I suggest approval be made very very difficult for them. They own so many properties in NW, and haven't been the best retail landlords. Complete self interest, which the neighborhood should reflect back at them.

The ANC's have all passed resolutions lauding density and the COMPLAN. AU is offering density with most of their plans. They ANC's and AU are both pro development and more housing units regardless of neighborhood character. GGW would say that this is all good. There will be more consumers for Target and Chase Bank.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh, no. I had not heard this about Sullivans. Really bad news.

The last time I was there (about 6 weeks ago), the merchandise looked terrible. The place was in shambles and lots of empty shelves. The person at the check out counter said that they were having supply and shipping problems. I wondered then if something was going on.

Does anyone remember the old Sullivans farther down the street, where Cathedral Commons is now?

Yes, I shopped at both. They were winding down the business--which is why the place looked like that. My sense is, like Johnson's, they tried their best and their talks with AU didn't "go through". Anyone up for a protest /March from Sullivan's to AU?

I don't think they really adapted to COVID and the post-COVID economy. That is not AU's fault.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is up with Tenleytown? I know that it was not an AU tenant but apparently Tenleytown could not even support a Starbucks on a prime metro location.

Gastropub closed and just sitting boarded up vacant.

Kitty O'Shea's just vacant.

UIP is starting the construction on the building Kitty O'Shea's was in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is up with Tenleytown? I know that it was not an AU tenant but apparently Tenleytown could not even support a Starbucks on a prime metro location.

Gastropub closed and just sitting boarded up vacant.

Kitty O'Shea's just vacant.

Young adults are the lifeblood of the bar and restaurant industry, and Tenleytown is about the last place young adults want to live in DC. College students alone can't support those businesses because half of them can't drink legally and the other half doesn't want to hang out in a dingy Irish pub when they could go to a bar that caters to their generation on U St or Adams Morgan.

I grew up in Tenleytown when regular people could still afford to live there, that's why places like Maggie's, Armand's, Round Table, and Babe's could exist. Now Tenley is a victim of its own success. The only people who can pay $1.5MM for a house there are overworked attorneys and DCUM's famous "if you have more than one drink you're an alcoholic, if you have more than 3 bites of food a day you're a fatty" housewives, neither of which have the time and inclination to frequent bars and restaurants, or at least the kind of restaurants that can exist in Tenleytown.

Maggies and Armands closed because the people who were running them retired and they didn't want to bother selling the businesses.
Round Table closed because the building was converted to a bank.
Babe's closed to make way for a new building.

The owners of all of these buildings took a major windfall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not enough kids in upper NW DC to support a toy store. They can't even fill their schools there. That's why they need to have such a high number of out of bounds students at Wilson and Deal and Janney etc.

There are plenty of kids to fill Janney, Deal, and Wilson, it's just that many if not most of them are going to private schools instead.

Lack of kids isn't what closed Sullivan's, people are just getting their toys elsewhere, like online where it's cheaper and arrives at your door in hours. It's tough to compete against that kind of convenience.

I agree that people got lazy, but an effort could be made to save Sullivan's. People make a pointed effort to shop at Politics and Prose, because they don't want to wake up and see a void there. We need to save Sullivan's. And it doesn't sound like AU tapped into that, or they could totally have delegated some students to make a student project around saving Sullivan's. Zero imagination.

The owner of Sullivans didn't want to adopt to having a website, a delivery service, a conceirge service or anything that would have generated business over the past year. Compare to Child's Play in Chevy Chase, DC who did all of these things and will now be the only toy store in NW.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To support independent businesses in any industry you have to utilize them often. Competition with big chains is fierce. People know this but it’s so easy to not to do it.

Not true at all of Sullivan's. The place was always packed. Last minute birthday gifts, best art supply place in town - they had a good thing going. I don't fault this one on chain stores or Amazon. This is AU screwing them over.

Proof of this? Because the last several times I was in Sullivan's, it was understocked. I had to resort to Amazon or other stores to get what I was looking for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not enough kids in upper NW DC to support a toy store. They can't even fill their schools there. That's why they need to have such a high number of out of bounds students at Wilson and Deal and Janney etc.

There are plenty of kids to fill Janney, Deal, and Wilson, it's just that many if not most of them are going to private schools instead.

Lack of kids isn't what closed Sullivan's, people are just getting their toys elsewhere, like online where it's cheaper and arrives at your door in hours. It's tough to compete against that kind of convenience.

I agree that people got lazy, but an effort could be made to save Sullivan's. People make a pointed effort to shop at Politics and Prose, because they don't want to wake up and see a void there. We need to save Sullivan's. And it doesn't sound like AU tapped into that, or they could totally have delegated some students to make a student project around saving Sullivan's. Zero imagination.

Creative singles and young professionals don’t care about Sullivan’s. If we’re going to attract vibrancy to Tenley aka DC Uptown, we need to rethink the existing paradigm.

Exactly! No more mom and pop. Bring on the density and Amazon express stores, maybe a Bank of America and maybe a Valero's to ciu terpoint the Wawa.

It's so weird that people think density=bland. Except for outliers like Navy Yard that were created from scratch a few years ago, the densest parts of DC are the ones with the most local character - U St, Capitol Hill, Petworth, etc. The parts of DC that are nothing but bland chain stores are the suburban parts like Tenleytown. More population in a smaller area means more people and more money to support more stores.

Okay explain Columbia Heights, DC's densest neighborhood that is nothing but "bland chain stores" up and down 14th Street? Hell, there's a mall stuffed with "bland chain stores." Zero local character.

So yes, density = bland.

Yes, for real individuality and local character, you need to come to, oh, I don't know, maybe the Milestone Shopping Center in Germantown.

(No, not really.)

There's probably more there than in Columbia Heights, unless you count Best Buy, Target and overpriced condos as "local character."

DCUSA is one building with a bunch of chain stores. Columbia Heights has all sorts of amazing stores on 14th Street and Irving/Park etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To support independent businesses in any industry you have to utilize them often. Competition with big chains is fierce. People know this but it’s so easy to not to do it.

So Starbucks, on the metro stop and always full of people could not eek out a profit in Tenleytown. Starbucks was also really the only daytime homeless shelter with the Library closed during pandemic.

I think you answered your own question. A starbucks filled with homeless people doesn't make enough money to stay open.

I stopped going to that Starbucks years ago, with the rats running thru and homeless splash showering in the bathroom. Out family also avoids theibrary and whole foods bathrooms, as a rule. Cheh really needs to focus on some housekeeping. We want small business and mainstays like Sullivans, and the main street also need to be appealing. Adding more density will only bring more traffic, trash, rats and homeless (I don't blame them. DC has no day shelters!)..and the powers that be don't seem inclined to address any of the quality of life issues just build build build the big box!

I love that people here keep complaining that the Councilmember is somehow responsible for scrubbing the bathrooms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not enough kids in upper NW DC to support a toy store. They can't even fill their schools there. That's why they need to have such a high number of out of bounds students at Wilson and Deal and Janney etc.

There are plenty of kids to fill Janney, Deal, and Wilson, it's just that many if not most of them are going to private schools instead.

Lack of kids isn't what closed Sullivan's, people are just getting their toys elsewhere, like online where it's cheaper and arrives at your door in hours. It's tough to compete against that kind of convenience.

I agree that people got lazy, but an effort could be made to save Sullivan's. People make a pointed effort to shop at Politics and Prose, because they don't want to wake up and see a void there. We need to save Sullivan's. And it doesn't sound like AU tapped into that, or they could totally have delegated some students to make a student project around saving Sullivan's. Zero imagination.

Creative singles and young professionals don’t care about Sullivan’s. If we’re going to attract vibrancy to Tenley aka DC Uptown, we need to rethink the existing paradigm.

Exactly! No more mom and pop. Bring on the density and Amazon express stores, maybe a Bank of America and maybe a Valero's to ciu terpoint the Wawa.

It's so weird that people think density=bland. Except for outliers like Navy Yard that were created from scratch a few years ago, the densest parts of DC are the ones with the most local character - U St, Capitol Hill, Petworth, etc. The parts of DC that are nothing but bland chain stores are the suburban parts like Tenleytown. More population in a smaller area means more people and more money to support more stores.

Okay explain Columbia Heights, DC's densest neighborhood that is nothing but "bland chain stores" up and down 14th Street? Hell, there's a mall stuffed with "bland chain stores." Zero local character.

So yes, density = bland.

Yes, for real individuality and local character, you need to come to, oh, I don't know, maybe the Milestone Shopping Center in Germantown.

(No, not really.)

There's probably more there than in Columbia Heights, unless you count Best Buy, Target and overpriced condos as "local character."

DCUSA is one building with a bunch of chain stores. Columbia Heights has all sorts of amazing stores on 14th Street and Irving/Park etc.

Wawa, CVS, FedEx, BB&T Bank, 7-11: None of which are in that mall. DCUSA also takes up a comically massive footprint in the neighborhood, complete with an always-empty parking garage, so writing it off as "one building" is putting lipstick on a pig. Your prized density has brought with it soulless, charmless retail that can be found anywhere else. The recipe is already being repeated in other "dense" neighborhoods.

[Anonymous]

You haven't walked around Columbia Heights if you are ascribing the whole commercial area to be the one block-sized buidling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Wawa, CVS, FedEx, BB&T Bank, 7-11: None of which are in that mall. DCUSA also takes up a comically massive footprint in the neighborhood, complete with an always-empty parking garage, so writing it off as "one building" is putting lipstick on a pig. Your prized density has brought with it soulless, charmless retail that can be found anywhere else. The recipe is already being repeated in other "dense" neighborhoods.

I don't understand why you keep referring to DC USA as an example of density. It's not. For one thing, it has a two-story underground parking garage with 1,000 spaces.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Wawa, CVS, FedEx, BB&T Bank, 7-11: None of which are in that mall. DCUSA also takes up a comically massive footprint in the neighborhood, complete with an always-empty parking garage, so writing it off as "one building" is putting lipstick on a pig. Your prized density has brought with it soulless, charmless retail that can be found anywhere else. The recipe is already being repeated in other "dense" neighborhoods.

I don't understand why you keep referring to DC USA as an example of density. It's not. For one thing, it has a two-story underground parking garage with 1,000 spaces.

It’s apparent you guys just make up definitions for words and concepts on the fly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Wawa, CVS, FedEx, BB&T Bank, 7-11: None of which are in that mall. DCUSA also takes up a comically massive footprint in the neighborhood, complete with an always-empty parking garage, so writing it off as "one building" is putting lipstick on a pig. Your prized density has brought with it soulless, charmless retail that can be found anywhere else. The recipe is already being repeated in other "dense" neighborhoods.

I don't understand why you keep referring to DC USA as an example of density. It's not. For one thing, it has a two-story underground parking garage with 1,000 spaces.

It’s apparent you guys just make up definitions for words and concepts on the fly.

"You guys" who?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The next time AU asks for new building permits etc, I suggest approval be made very very difficult for them. They own so many properties in NW, and haven't been the best retail landlords. Complete self interest, which the neighborhood should reflect back at them.

The ANC's have all passed resolutions lauding density and the COMPLAN. AU is offering density with most of their plans. They ANC's and AU are both pro development and more housing units regardless of neighborhood character. GGW would say that this is all good. There will be more consumers for Target and Chase Bank.

This ANC and Mary Cheh are such disappointments on where they are steering the neighborhood 2.0. They don't have to be in cahoots with GGW and bad landlords like AU. But they are. And yes, I attend meetings and voice my opinion. You all should too--they are on zoom and you can also contact the ANC and Mary Cheh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Wawa, CVS, FedEx, BB&T Bank, 7-11: None of which are in that mall. DCUSA also takes up a comically massive footprint in the neighborhood, complete with an always-empty parking garage, so writing it off as "one building" is putting lipstick on a pig. Your prized density has brought with it soulless, charmless retail that can be found anywhere else. The recipe is already being repeated in other "dense" neighborhoods.

I don't understand why you keep referring to DC USA as an example of density. It's not. For one thing, it has a two-story underground parking garage with 1,000 spaces.

It’s apparent you guys just make up definitions for words and concepts on the fly.

"You guys" who?

DC USA not being an example of density because it has underground parking is purely made up.