Category Archives: Retail

June 7, 2010 · 10:00 am

The Georgetown Apple is Here!

No, not really. The technology store still seems weeks away, but if you want to get your hands on a “genuine” “Georgetown Apple”, stop by Safeway. They’re currently selling apples branded with the Georgetown moniker.

From the sign, the apples appear to come from Nature’s Partner, a branch of Giumarra companies. There is no such thing as a “Georgetown Apple”, so this is likely just a private label rebrand of another species. From the company’s offerings, it looks a bit like the Eve apple. Continue reading →

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June 3, 2010 · 10:00 am

Aren’t They Building…Updates

Pottery Barn by afagen.

Last week GM unveiled a new feature here at the Georgetown Metropolitan: Aren’t They Building…It is a list of all the projects around town that GM is aware of along with a link to an article on the project and an expected date of completion.

Readers already submitted a few additions. Thus GM added the O and P St. trolley tracks, the streetcar itself, and the Jelleff sports fields.

More recently, GM heard a couple corrections to the predicted openings:

Brooks Brothers: GM originally heard that Brooks Brothers would move into the Pottery Barn space by June. Since Pottery Barn is only now closing, this is obviously not going to happen. GM guessed the new date would be fall 2010. Continue reading →

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May 24, 2010 · 10:00 am

Apple Store May Open Mid June

Last week, GM reported a rumor that the Apple Store was coming along pretty well and that it could even meet the original May opening. It turns out that was a little optimistic.

GM heard from a tipster that those people hired to work the store will be receiving training for the first two weeks of June. There’s no guarantee that the store will open up the third week of June, but it sure looks like that’s the plan.

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April 21, 2010 · 10:00 am

Trio of New Stores to Open in Georgetown

GM heard through the grapevine that three new stores are close to agreeing to move into three vacant spaces within a block of Wisconsin and M. They are Barbour, Camper, and Madewell.

Barbour is an English company famous for making extremely English-looking jackets, like this:

GM hears they’ll be moving into the old Richey & Co. space at 3221 M St. Continue reading →

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April 14, 2010 · 10:01 am

Georgetown Mall Heading to Auction Next Month

Photo by Mr. T in DC.

The Georgetown Mall is headed to auction next month, according to an article in the Post today (which marks Jonathan O’Connell’s arrival at the Post, bringing with him the real estate chops he honed at the Washington Business Journal).

As a quick background: Herb Miller’s Western Development and Anthony Lanier’s East Banc have been fighting over the future of the mall for years. Lanier claims that Miller broke an agreement they formed to buy the mall together when Miller bought the mall himself in 2006. Lanier sued and Miller’s plans to bring Bloomingdale’s collapsed. Western countersued for malicious legal filing.  Eventually Western defaulted on a loan held by the now bankrupt Capmark Financial Group. As a result, the property will be auctioned off next month. Continue reading →

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March 8, 2010 · 10:00 am

Everything’s For Sale at M29

Last Friday GM got the grand tour of the new M29 store, which is unsurprisingly located at M and 29th.  The boutique is part of the Four Seasons’ property and is a new enterprise of Strategic Hotels & Resorts, which owns the hotel.

The unifying theme of M29 is this: everything is for sale, which has at least two meanings. First of all, according to Liliana Baldassari, head of Four Seasons PR, literally just about everything in the store is for sale.

For instance, above you can see an assortment of paperweights, trays, jewelry and books. All of that is for sale. Like the table too? It’s yours.

The second meaning of that motto is that the store has a wide array of items for sale. Beyond clothes from designers such as Moyna, Christopher Fischer, Marika Charles, and Chan Luu, the store sells: Continue reading →

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February 18, 2010 · 10:01 am

Ideas That Didn’t Pan Out (At Least Not Yet)

The Georgetown Metropolitan has been published since December of 2008. Over that time GM has announced a lot of new stores and restaurants or other new treats for Georgetown. The thing is, some of those ideas never saw the light of day. GM would like to list the names of those we never got to know:

Paul's Restaurant - French Bakery on Wisconsin Ave.

Paul Restaurant

Capital Restaurant Concepts, the organization behind J. Paul’s, Neyla, Paolo’s and others, applied to turn the kitchen of the City Tavern Club into a French bakery called Paul Restaurant. While a placemark for the restaurant is still on the BID website, eleven months later and there are no signs of activity in the space.

Chance This Will Come to Fruition in 2010: Slim



The Mad Butcher

In October of 2008, Jonathan Umbell of Hook and Tacklbox announced plans to open a full service butcher in the space next to Tacklebox. As described at the time, it would have been an awesome addition to Georgetown:

At The Mad Butcher, whole pigs and sides of cattle from local farmers would be brought in and prepared on site. There would be an aging room on the property to treat the meat. The business would sell uncooked meat, and a casual cafe and fine dining restaurant would serve it.

Unfortunately a deal couldn’t be struck for Umbell to buy the property. In June 2009 he told GM that he felt the moment may have passed and he wouldn’t consider opening up at a different location until the economy improved. Needless to say, but Georgetown is still butcher-less.

Chance This Will Come to Fruition in 2010: None Continue reading →

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February 17, 2010 · 10:00 am

Brooks Brothers to Open in June

Finally some non-snow-related news: according to plans discussed at the last ANC meeting, the new Brooks Brothers store at 31st and M is scheduled to open in June.

The plans presented showed that Brooks Brothers will take over the entire building, including the Pottery Barn and the old Smith and Hawken. Right now there is no direct connection between those two spaces, so the Pottery Barn elevator will have to be extended up to the top floor.

The architect presenting the plans said that he didn’t know if the Connecticut Ave. Brooks Brothers is going to close (GM guesses that it won’t, but you never know).

He also implied that Pottery Barn’s closing was part of a wider strategy to shift primarily to a catalog business. That would be too bad…

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January 4, 2010 · 10:00 am

2010: The Year That Will Be

Last week, GM bid 2009 adieu and labeled it a bit of a transitional year for Georgetown. Why transitional? Well, many places went (or stayed) dark last year. 2010 will be the year when a lot of lights get turned back on.

Below are just a few of the closed establishments that will open their doors in 2010:

Safeway – Target Date May 2010

It’s hard to believe that it’s been eight months since Social Safeway closed down. But according to the recently amended schedule, the new and improved Safeway will open its doors May.

Don’t expect the new Safeway to look like the old one, just closer to Wisconsin. No, the new Safeway is part of the chain’s overall rebranding effort to stake out a place closer to Whole Foods in the grocery spectrum. If you want a peek at what it will look like, stop by the City Vista Safeway by the Convention Center sometime.

GM will just be thrilled not to have to hike out to the Palisades anymore.

Apple Store – Target Date May 2010

A year ago this month, the whole city was lamenting the failure of Apple to obtain approval of its designs for a new store on Wisconsin Ave. A year later, the designs are approved and construction well on its way. Or rather, deconstruction well on its way. The old French Connection building is gone. Supposedly the new building will be constructed between now and May.

While Safeway is supposed to open in May as well, GM’s predicting that Apple will make a bigger initial splash. Continue reading →

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December 31, 2009 · 10:01 am

2009 – A Georgetown Year in Review

2009 was the first full year of the Georgetown Metropolitan’s existence (except, of course, for it’s earlier existence as a genuine newspaper). While there were certainly some nights when GM has to stretch for content, overall Georgetown provided plenty of stories this year to fill these pages. So before we ring in 2010, GM wants to take one more look back at the year that was in Georgetown.

A Bad Apple Turned Good

2009 started off with a bang in Georgetown as Apple had four different designs rejected for its proposed store at 1220 Wisconsin Ave. While the decisions to reject the designs weren’t being made by “Georgetown,” there were howls of complaints from commentators who should know better lamenting about the monied-elite squashing their dreams of a District-based Apple Store.

The fact is that Apple simply made several bad decisions, perhaps out of pique, before they finally realized what they were up against. The first design was rejected based on the mild complaint that the wall of glass along the sidewalk was too monotonous:

Rather than actually address those concerns they went off the deep end and proposed these two successive designs, which may have their own merit but which are completely inappropriate for Georgetown:

Two designs later, Apple finally got a design approved by simply going back to the first design and making the glass wall slightly less monotonous. You know, like the Old Georgetown Board was asking for from the beginning. Continue reading →

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