The Georgetown Metropolitan

Yesterday GM published his initial top level numbers of his retail survey of Georgetown. One of the numbers that really jumped out was the vacancy number.

The total was 169. This was way above the recent tallies of vacancies for the neighborhood. But it occurred to GM that he may be over-counting that number a bit. That’s because over the years as he’s built up his database, he’s included some spaces that formerly contained a retail use but no longer do. This could be as simple as a space being converted to residential or office use (which GM doesn’t count as a retail use). Also, some “vacancies” were spaces like the old Smith and Hawken, which became the second floor of the Brooks Brothers. That should never really have been included as a vacancy. Other spaces were simply lost to time and GM can’t even figure out what address he was even talking about or they were torn down, like La Madeleine.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Georgetown Sweets Tour June 25th!
• Nice write up on the Voices of Zion production.

GM finally got around to performing his census of the Georgetown retail neighborhood. This is an (ostensibly) annual survey where GM walks up and down the streets and counts every store, restaurant, etc. He then tracks how many places closed, how many opened, what sort of places are there, and on and on.

The last time he did this was November 2019, i.e. right before Covid hit. He’s been a little hesitant to do another one too soon as it might not paint an accurate picture since so much was in flux. Also he was lazy.

But things seemed to have settled into a new normal, so GM finally got out his sheets and walked the streets. He is still compiling the data. But here are the overarching numbers:

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• If the Queen’s Jubilee has got you feeling Anglophilic, you can see the Mystery of Edwin Drood at Visitation this week.
• The robins left the nest but they haven’t left the garden yet…

Last month, DCPS held an informational meeting on the future high school that Georgetown students will feed into. Here is some key takeaways from that presentation.

First, just as a recap: the city is planning a new high school to address crowding at the only “west of the park” general public high school: Jackson-Reed (fka Wilson High School). Right now, both Hardy and Deal middle schools feed up to Jackson-Reed. The plan calls for Hardy students to start feeding into the new high school.

The location of the new high school is the former lower and middle school of Georgetown Day School on MacArthur Blvd. GDS consolidated its entire school into the former upper school campus on Wisconsin Ave. near Tenleytown. The city bought the MacArthur Blvd property in March 2021.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Capital Bikeshare is running a bike corral until July 4th at Wisconsin and the canal. What that means is that you can just walk up and leave a Capital bikeshare bike with them without worrying about a station being full.
• Big contractor moves its offices out of Georgetown for Reston.

Last week the ANC considered a resolution concerning proposed legislation on “right turns on red” (“RTORs”). GM mentioned this topic briefly in his preview of the meeting. In short: the Council is debating a bill that would make it the default that RTORs are not permitted throughout the city. GM was hoping the ANC would see the benefit in this proposal for pedestrian safety, but sadly the bugaboo of traffic won out. Nonetheless, the ANC eventually reached the correct position, if not a bit grudgingly.

The resolution adopted by the ANC calls for, among other things, the Council to exempt streets like M and Wisconsin from this change. Specifically, it discusses how at intersections like Wisconsin and M, there are so many pedestrians that drivers looking to turn right have to wait until the end of the light for all pedestrians to clear the intersection. The fear is that this would cause a back up of drivers. So then, the ANC concludes, drivers should be able to make that right even when they have a red light. The resolution does not, however, contemplate the fact that if there are a lot of pedestrians crossing M (and thus blocking a driver turning right from Wisconsin with the green) there would probably be a similar number of pedestrians crossing Wisconsin during the cycle when the driver would be turning on the red.

It’s the very fact that drivers have a difficult time turning with the green that makes allowing them to turn with the red so dangerous: there’s a lot of human beings legally crossing the street in front of them in either case. The ANC has it exactly opposite. Banning RTOR is especially necessary in places like Georgetown where there are a lot of pedestrians and drivers competing for the same bits of asphalt. This is why New York City never allowed RTOR in the first place.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Friends of Volta Park celebrated.
• GU rescinds mask mandate.