RSS FeedTarget’s New Urban Focus, Many Soon To Follow?
Last week, national retailer, Target, opened up pop-up stores in 3 urban centers. Yes, Washington DC was one of those cities! But, instead of opening up in Penn Quarter, the 50-item shop opened up on Georgetown’s Wisconsin & M intersection. If you blinked, you missed it because the store is already closed. Some may call it a publicity stunt or an efficient way to sell the hottest items during a busy shopping season at heavily trafficked city intersections. Others may point to a new focus by national retailers on urban centers for retail expansion.
Interviews of Target spokespeople seem to indicate that the pop-up stores have been a tremendous success. And that is good, because analysts believe that the pop-up stores were also a test to prove that there is strong retail demand in urban centers, such as Washington DC. One striking statistic is that DC has a mere 8.5 square feet of retail per capita while the regional average is 25 sq ft and the national average is 23.4 sq ft!
Maybe this recent success by national retailers will spur new store openings in Penn Quarter. We’re sure that everyone agrees that the recent restaurant boom has been excellent for the neighborhood, especially since many of the recent restaurant openings have been very successful. But we also think that a few more national retailers in the neighborhood would help balance out the retail profile of the Penn Quarter. What do you think?
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Comments
cities might indeed be coming back. look at DC’s downtown/near downtown revival. LA’s downtown experience somewhat parallels DC’s. we saw how sensitive Americans can be to fuel prices so instead of driving to get the goods, bring the goods to where the core of the people are. kinda’ like it used to be way back in DC, when the Central Market was that period’s Wal-Mart/Target/etc…
Washington, DC is lacking on all retail fronts – National retailers, regional retailers, and mom-and-pops. We need all of them. I believe all of them have a place in the DC market. I also believe that more local shops will open once more national and regional retailers open. We have more than enough spots for them.
The 8.5 square feet of retail per capita that DC has compared to 25 square feet per capita in the rest of the DC region just goes to show you how long we have to go.
And now, we’re (DC) trying to do some shops underneath Dupont Circle. I say leave that spot for future transportation access and concentrate on the prime spots on ground level. We haven’t learned to fill those in yet.
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“One striking statistic is that DC has a mere 8.5 square feet of retail per capita while the regional average is 25 sq ft and the national average is 23.4 sq ft!”
Maybe in other places people don’t complain so much about whether it is a national chain or some mom and pop shop with so much “character.”