The BID’s State of Georgetown

Every February, GM performs a census of commercial stores in Georgetown, tracking what opened, what closed, and what moved. He does this by simply walking up and down the streets (why he chose the coldest moth to do this outdoor exercise, who knows). Some interesting data comes out of this annual report.

Well the BID just release a report on the state of Georgetown that blows GM’s completely out of the water. It was produced by the recently expanded staff at the BID in part to facilitate the Georgetown 2028 process. GM has only started to absorb it, but it is an incredibly dense report with data GM could only dream about pulling together. And it’s beautifully presented as well.

The report is embedded below, but here are some interesting findings:

• There are almost 11,500 jobs in the Georgetown commercial district, with another 10,000 jobs at GU and the hospital. This results in a job density of about 60,000 per square mile, or about what you see in Dupont Circle or the Rosslyn-Balston corridor.
• About a third of the jobs are office workers, a little less than a third work in hotels or restaurants, and about 14% work in retail.
• There are 461 buildings along M and Wisconsin, comprising over 2.2 million square feet of rentable space.
• There are only 5 LEED certified spaces in Georgetown, compared with 349 for the rest of DC.
• The waterfront ice rink attracted 45,000 skaters last winter, twice the forecast.

GM could go on, but take a look yourself. It’s awesome, and the staff of the BID, particularly Josh Hermias the Economic Development Director, should be congratulated: