RSS FeedStaples Confirmed To Occupy Old Balducci’s Space :-(
Are you sitting down?
The first floor retail space at 425 7th St NW (1st floor of the Clara Barton/Lafayette building) is confirmed to become a Staples office supply store. On 3/28/08, the Historic Preservation Office approved signage for the new store.
We realize that Staples is the sacrificial lamb here because any other store (other than a grocery store) would receive the same response of shock/disbelief. There is a lot of emotional attachment to that space for PQ residents – a space that was designed to house our neighborhood grocery store.
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Wonder what will happen to the Staples near 13th & H? Two stores so close to Metro Center… Wonder if that 13th & H location will turn into something else?
seems like PQ is just a tourist destination and place where workers drive to from maryland and virginia. you can always take metro up to the new target in columbia heights on weekends.. oh yeah, they are getting a staples too, just like you!
how interesting! fyi Staples also has a location at 19th & L (which used to be an office depot). I’ll bet they keep em all.
When you say “a space that was designed to house our neighborhood grocery store”, maybe that points to the problem. That it was DESIGNATED for a grocer, but not actually DESIGNED for a grocer (based on what I hear from a number of people).
But on the other hand, all the people who so often complain that Jemal keeps spaces vacant for far too long have to acknowledge this to be a pretty quick turn around since the time Whole Foods backed away. If they already approved the Staple’s signage, that means the deal was signed some time ago. I’ve always believed quickly filling the spaces isn’t necessarily the best thing, and I think this case illustrates that arguement.
Too bad his office doesn’t communicate to the public more. The “News Room” on their website hasn’t been updated in over two years.
Yay. I work down there and currently in need for .7mm mechanical pencil do-dads. The office person who orders stuff is out sick and so I’m going to CVS to by some disposable mechanical pencils and canabalize them. I’ve bought too much office material from the 8th St CVS already.
When you are picking up this stuff on your lunch break and walking and it’s cold/ raining/ super humid a few blocks closer do help. So it’s needed for us office drones in lower Penn Quarter, we don’t have all the lovely options of the drones in Gallery Place. 13 & H is too effing far for me.
I think I will go cry now. Apparently, all of us who bought/rented in this neighborhood because of the promise of readily available food will just have to continue to drive to VA, metro to Waterfront or walk to NoMa when the Safeway opens.
I wonder how many people who bought in the Clara Barton Lafayette building were convinced to choose that building over others in the are a because of the promise of a grocery store?
Talk about sterilizing the neighborhood, I think it’s actually worse than a Walgreens.
Are there really enough offices in the area to sustain a Staples? I can see having one at 13th and H or the Farragut area, but this location is not exactly office central.
I think Staples’ produce section is better than Office Depot but the lack of a full service seafood counter is dissapointing
ed: The space was originally owned by JPI and a few months ago, it was bought by Douglas Development.
That Farmers Market is looking better & better today!
Hmm Just my opinion, but I think the residents of Penn Quater may have been sold the equivalent of the Brooklyn Bridge by theirn realtors.
Hah! You should have moved to Mt. Vernon Triangle! Safeway, Results, Busboys & Poets, hardware store – and just a 5 minute walk from the PQ. PQ is still mostly office space which makes sense for Staples. MtVT will be mostly residential – the only office buildings (for now. . . )is the DHS ICE bldg at 425 I and the soon to open bldg at 455 Mass. That’s why we’re getting the Safeway!!!!
Brooklyn Bridge? I don’t think it was far-fetched to believe a store would materialize–there had been talk about a grocery store at that site for years, long before construction even began. And Balducci’s was in the middle of construction when the deal fell apart.
The Safeway is going into that location because of the site’s easy access to New York Ave, Mass Ave, and 395. Mt. Vernon Triangle isn’t going to have nearly enough residents to support a grocery store either–the store needs to be able to draw from other neighborhoods and people on their way home to the burbs.
The sad thing is a mini/gourmet grocery would have not only served residents and downtown office workers, tourists would have stopped in there for prepared foods and other travel items.
A Staples will be useless to all the tourists flocking by there, as well as most of the big downtown offices, because they already have supply rooms filled with that merchandise.
Oh well, I guess it’s better than a vacant space…
Hey! it’s a “free market”, right? i guess there isn’t a demand for a grocery store… the Capitalist machine continues to power on!
I wonder what role if any our councilmember part time Jack had in these negotiations?
He provided some face time but not real effort when the balduccis deal first fell through.
#17, you forgot some of Mt. Vernon Triangles other selling points: hoardes of condos sitting on the market for ages, close proximity to neighbhorhoods riddled with bullet holes from gang wars, straying bullets from those neighborhoods and homeless shelters.
Okay, so it’s not a grocery store, but I still think it’s great news. No more empty storefront – hurray!
I think a Staples is an imperfect yet perfectly fine use of the space. let’s get the place leased, welcome our new retail neighbors and move on with our lives. the tribe has spoken. it’s a store. you can buy stuff there. it’s not another bank. it’s not a noisy, drunk dance club. the guy camping in the portico will need to find a new home. it’s not vacant. the residents and Jemal gave it the old college try but in the end it’s just fine.
#18, you would believe it was far fetched if you lived here long enough. Office and government workers have been asking for a grocery store in the downtown area for at least 18 years, since the Safeway International closed. It was said that there wasn’t any residents to support a grocery store. Landmark and Market Square have been around for years and yet no grocery store. Condominiums are popping up all over the place in the area. Where are the stores?
Please, residential living downtown wasn’t just planned in the past five years. This has been a long tine comming. How can you not plan for a grocery store. If not the Brooklyn Bridge, there was surely a bate and switch going on as for as grocery stores were cocerned.
#25, Penn Quarter is also in close proximity to neiborhood riddle with bullet holes from gang wars. As a matter of fact, some of the “thugs” that hang out at the McDonalds at the Verizon Center most likely belong to gangs.
#27 – where is your doom & gloom, your fist-shaking rage, your righteous indignation? 
Yeah, I would have preferred a specialty grocer too- it would have been a nice complement to the Safeway (regardless of it’s “urban” character)- but, to repeat what many have already said, it’s better than another empty storefront. That, and I think the impending opening of Bruegger’s is overshadowing my disappointment. Man, this man anyway, can survive on bagels alone!
“I think I will go cry now. Apparently, all of us who bought/rented in this neighborhood because of the promise of readily available food will just have to continue to drive to VA, metro to Waterfront or walk to NoMa when the Safeway opens.”
True, it is not in the Lafeyette/Barton complex, but from there the new Safeway at 5th and K/L streets (though north of Mass Ave, not exactly NoMa) is at most eight blocks away. Eight. Not as convenient as you’d like, but a touch closer than VA and Waterfront. I think a major grocery store eight blocks away will provide “readily available food.” Not exactly a reason for tears.
I have been walking from Mt. Vernon Triangle (near where the Safeway will be) to the Farmers Market (and other destinations) for over two years. It takes me 5 to 7 minutes on foot. Penn Quarter has a grocery store — it will be the Safeway at 5th and K. And perhaps we will finally get the intersection at 5th and Mass. fixed before all the thousands of PQ residents need to take their life into their hands crossing that street. Welcome to our part of the neighborhood — we’ve been trying to clean it up for you.
#17, I think MVT has some upside and I recently purchased there. But I certainly wouldn’t be smack talking to PQ. Sure PQ doesn’t have a grocery, but they are a neighborhood that has fully arrived.
Other than the amenities at CityVista what does MVT really have? Just residential condos and empty surface parking lots. Those lots offer potential, but first we’ll have to live next to construction sites, hope the developers don’t cut corners and ignore the master plan for the area to have ground floor retail (like 555 Mass did), and then we’ll have to wait for the retail to be occupied by tenants. All that is going to take several years.
Ultimately the proximity to PQ was a big selling point for me to buy at MVT. The Triangle still has a lot of work ahead to achieve it’s potential. But in the meantime I’m a hop, skip and a jump from everything PQ has to offer.
This is terrible news. I put it in the same category as the cell phone store.
Are there any other potential spaces in PQ which might attract a grocery store?
What upsets me about this situation is that promises were made. Residents spent years attending meetings, organizing letter writing campaigns, etc. We attracted residents to our part of the hood with promises of a grocer and it was all for nothing.
That’s what I’m frustrated about.
I hate to say this, but I think this blog contributed a but to peoples disappointment. The space was too small for most grocers. A specialty store would have been nice. But every time someone on this blog commented that they would like a place a “pick up a head of lettuce” you gave the potential grocers everything they needed to say no. No serious grocer would make a huge investment if the average sale was not $50+. A head of lettuce here and there doesn’t cut it.
The space also has many faults that are not conducive to a grocery — no parking or lack of sufficient parking, limited loading space, small footage, not a corner location so low visibility, and city traffic logistics.
We are getting a shiny new Safeway in a few months. We can take a $1 bus to an improving Giant. We can metro to a Whole Foods. We have a farmers market. Last time I checked, no one living in a condo or apartment was starving.
Geez people, everyone needs to calm down a little and stop acting like the sky is falling.
I think it’s great that another vacant space will be filled by a retailer….rather have that than an empty storefront with homeless people living in front of it.
Furthermore, you have a neighborhood grocery store opening at 5th and K in a few short months, and from the sound of it, it will probably be a large and high-quality one. Looking further into the future, I’d say there’s a good chance of the area getting another large grocery store once they redevelop the old convention center site (they’re supposed to break ground in January 09). That will afford a large space for a superstore and also add 700 housing units to the neighborhood. I know that’s still several years away, but I think you can rest assured that the long-term vitality of your neighborhood is on an upward trajectory. Please be patient and keep a bit of perspective!
sorry guys! i was hoping this space would be filled with something more dynamic. at least its not an empty storefront anymore… as others have said. also, until the doors open for business, nothing is a done deal.
Nobody expected Safeway or Giant to fill the space — obviously it’s too small. I think most people are disappointed that a high end, but small, grocery store (like Balducci’s or Trader Joes) was not able to fill the space. I think we all wanted to be able to buy prepared products, high-end food to cook, and some staples (at prices above what one would pay at Safeway). I do believe that the agency for the developer misled buyers, but that would be but one topic on which they conveyed false information.
I talked to someone who implied that Balduccis was actually looking again real recently (you can tell people are looking at the space bc thats when the homeless guy goes away). It looked like he even had a Balduccis business card. Maybe official confirmation from Staples is in order.
Hmmm: Bear Stearns is Balducci’s parent company. Since Bear Stearns recently went under, I doubt that Balducci’s has any latitude to open new locations. I’m sure all of its plans (if there were any) are on hold – at best.
I spent 800K on a condo in the Clara Barton. Balduccis was a part of that decision. I am appalled and embarrassed.
A five to ten minute walk to a new, deluxe Safeway…a wonderful weekly farmers’ market…a walk/bikeride/Circulator bus ride/drive to Trader Joe’s in Foggy Bottom…a metro ride to Whole Foods at Tenley, or Giant at VanNess…or Harris Teeters’ at Pentagon Row…what’s the problem, folks? I moved to PQ from the Maryland ‘burbs, where one had to drive everywhere…I can walk or bus or metro or bike to anything I need from/in PQ. It’s a damned good life.
#42..excellent post.
People need to quick complaining and look for a solution.
For some reason, this area is not attracting specialty shoppes geared to residents and tourists.
One needs to look at demographics to perhaps find an answer.
I recently went to the new Rockville Center near the Rockville metro and it is filled with pleasant little shoppes and restaurants. Any of these places would be ideal in this area, or at least to my thinking.
So why are they there and not here?
While we have had some luck attracting businesses to fill the storefronts of PQ: Asia 9, Crime and Punishment Museum, Nando’s, etc. Maybe #43 is right and we need to start asking why those of us who live here seem to have so little say in the selection of what businesses move into their buildings.
Some residents may not agree, but I’d like to see the ever growing number of people living in PQ have a little more input on the direction our neighborhood is headed.
As a resident of Clara Barton, we did have signage in our lobby encouraging people to petition for the Balduccis to move forward. Since then, I have seen or heard no action. As such, this Staples announcement is a complete surprise. Perhaps its a function of the board not being aggressive enough.
Or perhaps Balducci’s made a sound business decision based on financial projections that showed that that specific location would not be profitable. I applaud the efforts made to encourage Balducci’s to locate downtown, but companies rarely make business decisions based on condo board or resident petitions. If that were enough, DC USA in Columbia Heights would have a Whole Foods.
I agree with #47
I knew people at Balducci’s — and although they signed a letter of intent, they were never in the financial position to make that space work in the long term. No amount of canvassing or petitions can make a commercial venture work. Money and a solid, repeating customer base does.
Urban stores are very risky — especially for businesses that have always been suburban-based. That’s why the tried-and-trues (and often boring) are the ones who sign the dotted line.
Forget the original Balducci’s in NYC — the company opening here is not that — it is a reconstituted, renamed Sutton Place. Their other stores (Old Town, Bethesda, Spring Valley) all have a much larger population from which to pull customers in.
A Staples will do very well in that location. It is surrounded by businesses who have no fast access to a ream of paper or toner cartridge. The closest office supply store is 7 blocks away — a distance on foot for a quick run by a secretary in heels or a businessperson running late.
MtVTResident,
We don’t have to move to Mt. Vernon Triangle because all those things you mentioned are in our neighborhood. Some people take the arbitrary and artificial boundaries of the PQ very seriously, as if they are physical things. In reality they are fictitious and exist only in the minds of those who choose to regard them. Myself, I consider Safeway, Results, Busboys & Poets, and Logan Hardware as coming to the PQ as much as MVT.
There’s a very simple reason that a specialty grocery store — including Balducci’s — won’t move into that space. These are companies that know their business and their metrics; they are not convinced that there is an economic model to support occupying that space. Frankly, I agree. As much as I would like to see a specialty grocery store there, I know that if there were I would make an occasional stop there, but would do most of my shopping at our neighborhood Safeway. They know that too.
And, I’m happy to see Staples move in there. I shop at the one downtown all the time, and this is much closer.
#44, last I checked ours is a Capitalist economy. Businesses are not “voted” in. Even then, you do have a voice. If you don’t like a business and enough others agree with you, it’ll go away. But your biggest say in what kinds of businesses come in here is to invest (and risk) your money and start one yourself.
Of course, you might encounter opposition from some who don’t want your particular business to come to the neighborhood.
JPI, developer of the Clara Barton/Lafayette was required by the city to market the space to a grocer for 5 years. They actually had a signed agreement with Balduccis at one point but as we can all see the deal never came to fruition. Safeway will be here in September and all will be fine!
Whine whine whine. This city used to have minimal grocery stores. And now one is opening a few blocks away. Quit your complaining, get some exercise and walk over there. Did you actually expect a grocer to open at that storefront on 7th st? One would open 2 blocks away and everyone would still be moaning and groaning.
Most NYC neighborhoods are served by smaller corner stores not Wholefoods. Maybe we should approach the Korean/asian owned convenience stores (many who focus on alcohol and snacks) to stock some basics. The store on 8th and D NW is the same size as many Manhattan corner stores. Hundreds of res units within blocks but they close on weekends.
#49- I couldn’t have said it better myself. I live in Mt. Vernon Square north of NY Ave., but consider “my neighborhood” to extend down 7th to Penn Ave, and I walk that stretch all the time. This idea that you need a grocery store in each of the subdivided neighborhoods that were really only invented by realtors in the past couple years, and that walking from one to the next is unacceptable, just makes me shake my head.
#53- Great point. If we could get some of the abundance of corner liquor stores to stock basics or some produce a la NYC, that would be a boon to all our “neighborhoods.”
I disagree that this is all about capitalism. Without some sort of regulation, we’d have a bank or a liquor store on every corner. There’s nothing wrong with the city working to get residents the right mix of retail. That’s partly how we got Bruegger’s. That space was designated for food/bakery.
My biggest problem with Staples is that they won’t be open on weekends. I find that really unacceptable for such a prominent space in our neighborhood. After leasing such great 7th Street spaces to Commerce Bank and Staples, I have to say I am very disappointed with Doug Jemal’s commitment to retail downtown. Any chance we can get him to a DNA meeting?
#55, how do you know they wont be open on the weekends? The Staples on 13th & H is open 7 days a week.
Andy – I share your disappointment regarding Staples, but do you really think that without regulation there would be a liquor store on every corner? Are there that many drunks in the neighborhood? I sincerely doubt it.
Yes, the city can help shape a neighborhood through zoning, developer agreements, and/or tax incentives. However, the city can’t force stores to locate in PQ.
If a store, whether it’s Balducci’s or Bruegger’s, projects a money-losing venture (and they will include any tax and other financial incentives in their analysis), they are not going to open a store. These are for-profit businesses, not charities. It really is that simple.
Ok, maybe not liquor stores (though we could use a nice wine store). Without some sort of regulation, I do think we would be overrun by banks and national chains that can give the developers the long-term leases and high rents they want.
I’m not saying the city should force businesses to locate downtown, I am saying that the city should be a bit more aggressive about bringing residential amenities to the neighborhood. There were some grocery stores that were interested in the Balducci’s space, but they couldn’t afford the inflated rents (which had risen sharply after Balducci’s dropped the space). I understand that the market plays a role in the rent, but from my understanding, the developer was permitted to build the Jefferson and the Clara Barton at that scale only because they agreed to house certain amenities on the ground floor (namely a grocer).
On the staples closing on the weekend, I was referring to the comments above. Perhaps I misread. If it’s not true, I am happily mistaken.
According to conversation today with one fairly in the know source, Staples was serious but its not a certainty bc the space is not a great fit. Other parties more to our liking are looking at financing and costs to finish out space but as we have learned, final decisions could be weeks or more away.
Maybe with all the good announced restaurant and retail openings lately, potential tenants are reconsidering that space.
If we could get a few more art studio people and professional services and law firms to move into the neighborhood (instead of govmt employees who might tend to eat in their own cafeterias) the daytime population will skew more to nonchain and more choices in retail.
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Unleash the beast. I can just smell those fresh ink catridges, paper clips and three ring binders now. It’s almost euphoric.
But wait…is there going to be even better news? That Staples will be closed on weekends.