Nathans by M.V. Jantzen.
Walking by the iconic Nathans building at M and Wisconsin recently you may have noticed that the large sign advertising the building’s availability has come down. GM emailed the agent, Josh Feldman, to see whether that meant a tenant was found. His response “[w]e are close to tenanting the building but I cannot comment past that. I am sure we would all like to see the corner achieve its potential.”
Could this mean we’ll finally bring some life back to the southeast corner of Georgetown’s crossroad? GM hopes so, but when informed about the news, a person very knowledgeable of the Georgetown commercial real estate market was very skeptical. So don’t get too excited until we see some more evidence.
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
The building is in such a state of disrepair, I can’t imagine anyone buying it as is…or without a guarantee from the owners (the Heon children) to fix up the property or at least reduce the price to where it is reasonable. The same goes for the old Cellar Door property at 34th and M and the old Georgetown movie theater on Wisconsin, all up for sale, all in a major state of disrepair. You can’t have it both ways Heons.
The upper facade in particular is now in a very bad way, after the tenants moved out. The structure appears to be brick that has been plastered over on the upper floors, with a false balustrade on top that is crumbling, and not too long ago a large chunk of the plaster had come loose from the upper part of the facade and fallen onto the sidewalk. The owners are lucky that no one was injured.
Georgetown is becoming a place for cvs stores, banks and fast food carryouts. Oh, and Anthony Lanier’s furnishings stores. There is no real mix in commercial outlets anymore. We need people with vision leasing these places. Up in the 1600 block we hear the vacated spaces that housed District Fine Arts Building and Sugar were apparently bought by people who are going to use them for fast food/delivery operations. We need a pro-active ANC and CAG, not civic groups acting after the fact.
According to WBJ, the District Fine Arts space is going to be occupied by a cafe called Midtown Cafe, supposedly with seating for 25-30 people. I’m not sure if it will qualify as fast food or delivery.
Also, Sugar is still open. It’s just that the owner wants to sell and is in negotiations with a carry out restaurant chain. My guess is that it’s BGR. But I personally think that’s a bad place for a take out restaurant. It’s too far north.
And what’s the one thread that ties the District Fine Arts space, the Sugar space, Nathans, the Cellar Door, and the Georgetown Theater?
They’re all listed by Josh Feldman.
Maybe Rhino wants additional space.