Photo by Ehpien.
Good morning Georgetown, here’st the latest:
- Ecuadorian embassy in town for a while.
- Historic Georgetown family that once made 50,000 pies a day, is trying to get back in the business. They hope to open a storefront this fall.
The Morning Metropolitan
Filed under The Morning Metropolitan
The State of Georgetown 2012
As discussed a few times over the last couple days, GM recently finished his annual survey of stores in Georgetown (again, just for reference sake, “stores” in this context means stores, restaurants, salons, etc.; basically any commercial space except pure office space). He’s sliced and diced the numbers and is ready to serve them up.
Overall Numbers
This year GM counted a total of 510 stores in Georgetown. This is a drop from the 527 he counted last year. As noted last week, this doesn’t mean Georgetown lost a net of 17 stores; it’s a bit worse than that. That’s because every year GM counts a few more stores that he overlooked in previous years.
When you just isolate out the openings and closings, the situation looks a lot worse. There were 78 closings in Georgetown in 2011. That compares with a total of 43 closings from the year before, and 47 the year before that. That’s a 81% increase in store closings. Put in context: 15% of stores open in February 2010 are now closed.
You might think that the gutting of the mall is causing this increase, but that’s not the whole story. Yes, 38 of the closings were in the mall (compared with only 16 the year before) but that still means that 40 non-mall stores closed. Last year only 27 non-mall stores closed. That’s a 48% increase.
The good news is that there was a corresponding increase in openings to somewhat offset this gloom. There were 43 openings in 2011. That compares with 30 the year before, and 22 the year before that. So that means there were almost twice the number of stores opening in 2011 than in 2009. That’s some good momentum.
But there are still more new vacancies now then there was a year ago, 35 to be exact (to make the total number of vacancies 117). That’s an increase in vacancies of almost 300% over last year’s 13 net loss. This increase probably can be mostly attributable to the mall. Thus the overall story is that the pace of turnover (i.e. old stores being replaced by new stores) increased from 2010 to 2011, but the spike in vacancies in the mall means the net losses are way up. Continue reading
Filed under Stores of Georgetown
The Morning Metropolitan
Photo by Streets of Washington.
Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:
- Check out the characteristically great article by Streets of Washington about the old Aqueduct bridge.
- Gameday: Georgetown 1911.
Filed under The Morning Metropolitan
The State of Georgetown 2012: Openings and Closings
It’s that time of year again when GM goes around counting up all the stores in Georgetown and determining what closed, what opened, and what’s still around. While GM is still doing some slicing and dicing to give you a full picture of the scene, today he’s going to simply list all the stores that closed and all the stores that opened between now and 12 months ago.
The Closings:
There were 77 shops that closed between last year’s check and this year’s. They were:
- Einstein Bagels
- Altezze/Gore Dean
- For Your Home Décor
- Sixteen-Fifty Nine
- Georgetown Café
- Erwin Gomez
- Washingtonian Gas
- Claude Taylor
- Poppy
- Fuel
- NIDO
- Originals
- National Jewelry Center
- Big Planet Comics
- Gallerie Anatolian
- Reiss London
- Ed Hardy
- Georgetown Fine Jewelry
- See
- Prince Café
- Hunan Chinese
- Aditi Indian Cuisine
- Morso
- Morso Express
- Sangaree
- Fresh
- Hook
- Club Monaco Continue reading
Filed under Stores of Georgetown
The Morning Metropolitan
Photo by kkfea.
Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:
- What’s up with the Georgetown mall?
- Duke Ellington was a great man, and Duke Ellington School is a great school, but the Post needs to stop saying it’s in Georgetown. It’s in Burleith.
Filed under The Morning Metropolitan
Not So Long Ago: Wisconsin and Dumbarton
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This week on Not So Long Ago, GM stops by Wisconsin and Dumbarton. GM’s not going to pretend this is an interesting flashback; the only thing that changed was the name of the bank and the awning color. But the history of American Security Bank is kind of interesting!:
American Security Bank was founded in 1889 in Alexandria, Virginia, as a banking and trust concern, operating a branch in the District of Columbia at 1419 G Street, NW; the following year it reincorporated in the District and moved to 1405 G Street. It was the second trust company established in the District and the first to offer a woman’s department. By 1903 business had grown to the extent that a new location was once again sought. The present location (a block from Lafayette Square and part of the Lafayette Square Historic District) was selected, and construction began in 1904. The design was praised in the banking press, and it was featured in The American Architect and Building News in 1905. The building now houses a branch of Bank of America as a result of the latter’s merger with NationsBank, which purchased MNC Financial in 1993. MNC had purchased American Security Bank in 1987 but continued to operate it under the original name. Due to its location immediately north of the Treasury Building the building appeared on the back of the ten dollar bill for many years,[5] a fact exploited in advertising with the slogan “right on the money.”
It’s too bad this building continues to be occupied by a bank (as several of the more prominent corners of Georgetown are). Banks provide little in the way of street life and with online banking becoming more dominant, bank buildings are becoming even more unnecessary. Hopefully someday Bank of America will clear out and something more interesting will move in.
Filed under Not So Long Ago
The Morning Metropolitan
Photo by schvin.
Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:
- Oh please make these stop.
- On homelessness in Georgetown.
Filed under The Morning Metropolitan
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
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