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randokomando t1_jb17m5e wrote

Reply to comment by 9throwaway2 in Cleveland park needs a coffee shop by katrusiaa

Wisconsin Ave maintains tons of good retail though. What are they doing over there we’re not doing in Cleveland Park?

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cpt_raymondholt t1_jb19z1p wrote

....have you been around glover park in the past 4 years? its been dying arguably worse than CP for the same reasons.

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randokomando t1_jb1a68o wrote

Come to think of it, I can’t say that I have. Which tends to prove your point.

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9throwaway2 t1_jb1hk14 wrote

6 lanes of car sewer. Easiest way to kill retail is too many commuter cars and too few shoppers.

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embracethepale t1_jb1lcul wrote

It really is observable the effect on local business when Wisconsin widens between Georgetown and Glover Park/Cathedral Heights. But the lousiest voices you’ll hear are complaints from commuters who use Wisconsin to get out of the city and over the Key Bridge.

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9throwaway2 t1_jb195cy wrote

Less nimbyism. More new development. Look at cityridge. 1000 new apts. instant customers. We have new developments which gave us wegmans, target, and trader joes. All came with hundreds of new apartments and condo. Btw, all were fought over, but the nimbys (led by the current chair of the DC council) lost. Also Wisconsin in parts is a parking lot, not a freeway. In Georgetown it is barely two lanes. Sadly parking lots are still better for businesses than freeways.

Also the palisades is a food desert, so they all come to Wisconsin to shop.

(edit, this is for wisconsin from tenleytown south, friendship heights is dead - wisconsin there is a 8 lane highway in parts)

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randokomando t1_jb19zrh wrote

I tend to think pure, unadulterated NIMBYism is the Cleveland Park culprit. Also the street scape is an atrocious war zone and has been for half a decade. I don’t have any clue what they’ve been trying to accomplish, but that little business district on Conn has been in various stages of construction and demolition for the entire time I’ve lived here, with zero visible progress.

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9throwaway2 t1_jb1akhu wrote

i mean look at the shit against the macklin redevelopment. that should have been a slam dunk. (for the record, I'm on the Wisconsin corridor, we've had our share of nimbyism, but CP is third only to the palisades (anti school, kicked out the safeway) and spring valley (ok with mustard gas, but not any affordable housing)

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walkallover1991 t1_jb238gc wrote

Folks in the Palisades have no one to blame but themselves.

It’s always rich when I hear someone from the Palisades complain about having to drive for groceries.

Safeway was going to build a brand new store on the site of the old one with housing on top and the community said hell no and Safeway packed up…the NIMBYs won the battle but last the war.

IIRC, something similar happened in Spring Valley a while (~10 years) back. Safeway wanted to build a store with housing on top and the community pushed back.

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wombatncombat t1_jb1cfjq wrote

That's not really true... Bistro Anacosia, black salt and et voila are great high end options. And there's a bunch of other more reasonable options as well...

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9throwaway2 t1_jb1gpq3 wrote

Food desert refers to full service grocery stores. Nearest one is social Safeway on Wisconsin. We didn’t buy in the palisades almost entirely on that basis.

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wombatncombat t1_jb22tis wrote

Gotcha. Safeway on sangamore isn't that far but your right, not in the neighborhood. Used to have a Safeway a few years back.

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9throwaway2 t1_jb2c817 wrote

yeah, the neighborhood refused to let them redevelop it. so they just razed the store and sold the land.

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Too_LeDip_To_Quit t1_jb7tbib wrote

One of the fascinating things about CT is the existing density. The "gaps" between the commercial strips -- from WP to the Zoo, from the Zoo to CP, and from CP to Van Ness -- are almost entirely large multifamily buildings.

But when you spend a lot of time on CT, you really don't see much foot traffic at all from these apartments to the commercial strips. You can't blame them -- the streetscape is dangerous and unpleasant.

But there are a ton of people who already live on the corridor.

And yes, there should be more density on the commercial strips themselves and probably on the neighborhood streets as well.

But I think in general (not necessarily ITT) people oversell housing NIMBYism as the diagnosis here when transportation NIMBYism is the bigger villain.

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9throwaway2 t1_jb7udwr wrote

agree; but wisconsin is as bad from a transport point of view

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leagle89 t1_jb193jo wrote

I can’t say for sure, but I get the sense that CP rents are higher than pretty much any comparable neighborhood in upper NW. which seems completely counterintuitive…I would assume that rents would roughly reflect the market. You’d think rents would generally hover around the upper limit of what businesses can/are willing to pay. But it seems like high rents are consistently driving CP businesses out of business. I have no idea why developers keep rents at a level that basically ensures there will be no steady business…you’d think steadily collecting slightly lower rents would be better than not collecting higher rents. But hey, what do I know?

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FolkMetalWarrior t1_jb29j9a wrote

If it's anything like NY, lowering rent would revalue the property lower, which the property owner probably doesn't want to do; so they let it sit empty and write it off as a tax loss. Its a terrible end result for a community.

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