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How can we
help the two commercial strips?
This
is a complex question, since we are still debating why there are so
many empty store fronts on Connecticut Avenue. We can see, however,
that all commercial strips are not losing tenants as rapidly as
Connecticut Avenue.
Wisconsin Avenue is still healthy and we think that is due in large
part to the pending Giant development. Store fronts there are renting
for $49.50 per square foot (sf) as opposed to the asking price of $42
per sf for the McDonnalds and $48 for the Starbucks. Of
course, having the Giant parking lot available helps as well as the
promise of future free parking in the proposed underground garage.
The
Chevy Chase strip is still healthy and that may be due to the large
parking lots behind the stores as well as the Safeway lot. The
Tenleytown area has lots of parking in the Whole Foods building and CVS
(including its rooftop lot) on one side of the street and the Best Buy
underground lot on the other side. The Van Ness strip has huge parking
in the Giant building, just for buying an apple. So it may, indeed be
parking that is crippling us on Connecticut.
Our candidate for Second Vice President, Colins Roth, had an
interesting insight that the root cause of our problems is that the
strip is too small.
You can read that posting to the CPCA Listserve HERE.
He is thinking outside the box, but is this the
cause of the problem? Much more investigation and
discussion is needed. We intend to have an active committee to deal
with these issues and not just to have the CPCA doggedly defend the
exact terms of the Zoning Overlay that was developed twenty five years
ago.
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