Columbia Heights News - Washington, DC - Trader Joe's At DC USA?

Welcome to Columbia Heights News!

Thank you for visiting Columbia Heights News, your one-stop source for news and information about the exciting and rapidly developing neighborhood of Columbia Heights! For a summary of what Columbia Heights News has to offer, please click here.

Would you like Ellwood Thompson's Natural Market to come to Columbia Heights? Get more information and find out about what you can do to help make this happen here.

Friday, September 03, 2010

Major Retail Coming to Columbia Heights

Columbia Heights is poised to become the shopping destination for the entire Washington, DC area. Hundreds of thousands of square feet of retail space are in the works including DC USA, a 500,000 sq. ft. retail complex that will include major retailers such as Target, Best Buy, Bed Bath and Beyond, and possibly Whole Foods Market! More exciting retailers are planning to open in the newly renovated Tivoli Square and other developments across Columbia Heights. Read more in the Retail News section.

News Menu

Latest Comments

Ellwood Thompson's Signs Lease With DC USA
(1 comment)
El Rinconcito II Cafe
(12 comments)
Meridian Hill Park Still Under Construction
(9 comments)
New Restaurant Is Coming To Kenyon Square
(5 comments)
Mrs. Columbia Heights Wins 2008 Mrs. DC Title
(1 comment)
View14
(10 comments)
Pete's Apizza To Open On Monday
(16 comments)
DC USA
(51 comments)
DC USA and Ellwood Thompson's: Prospects
(12 comments)
Ellwood Thompson's Continue To Pursue DC USA
(14 comments)

Browse the Web Faster

Home

News

Trader Joe's At DC USA?

Written by Columbia Heights News

Wednesday, 18 April 2007

As we mentioned in a previous post, Whole Foods Or Ross?, the developers have made repeated attempts to recruit Trader Joe's to the DC USA retail complex. Trader Joe's has consistently turned down the project. Peter Mallios of Newmark Knight Frank, the leasing agent for DC USA, explained that Trader Joe's would have been an ideal tenant for the community and the development. Mallios indicated that since nothing is written in stone at this point, demonstration of community support could persuade Trader Joe's to set shop at DC USA.

We set out to find out if there is indeed a chance that Trader Joe's would come to DC USA given some community persuasion. We started out by trying to find a representative that could best serve as a point of contact for community members to express their interest in Trader Joe's. We ended up talking with quite a few people but gathered only tidbits of information along the way. We were told explicitly by one of our contacts that Trader Joe's is a very private company and that he did not want us to quote him on anything. We will honor his wishes. We will, however, provide you with the contact information for all the individual concerning Trader Joe's that we spoke and provide some general information. That way, those of you who are so inclined can follow up and try to get some more information.

Because Trader Joe's does not seem to list any phone numbers on their website, we tried calling Trader Joe's single DC location:

Trader Joe's
1101 25th Street NW
Washington, DC 20037
202-296-1921

We spoke with the manager of the store (forgot to get his name). He was actually quite informative. Trader Joe's seeks retail space that is between 10,000 and 12,000 square feet. He was not aware of the DC USA project but he had been told that Trader Joe's plans to open at least three locations in DC in the near future. However, he was not at liberty to tell us specifics, i.e. exact time frame and locations. He did provide us the number for the Trader Joe's East Coast Operations department in Boston, Massachusetts.

Trader Joe's
East Coast Operations
781-433-0234

We spoke to a lady at East Coast Operations who referred us to Roy Roberts of Milestone Associates. She told us that if community members wanted to suggest a site for Trader Joe's, Roberts would be the person to talk with. He represents Trader Joe's in all of its East Coast leasing transactions. Roberts' contact information is as follows.

Roy Roberts
Milestone Associates

508-650-1929

When we contacted Roberts we were immediately referred to Roger Carlson of First Retail Partners. Carlson handles leasing transactions specifically for the Washington, DC area. His contact information is:

Roger Carlson
First Retail Partners

202-742-1102

At this point, Roger Carlson seems to be the best point of contact if you would like to express your support for Trader Joe's and to get updates on its DC expansion plans.

The general sense that we got from all the conversations we had is that Trader Joe's does have an aggressive expansion plan for DC but it is very unlikely that it will involve DC USA. We could not get any specific reasons as to why DC USA is currently not being considered but we suspect it could partially be due to the lack of dedicated parking (see comments in Petworth News).

There have been some rumors going around that Trader Joe's may be coming to the Flats at Union Row condo/retail development less than a mile south on 14th St (see DCist article, A Campaign for Another Trader Joe's). Unfortunately we cannot confirm the validity of these rumors nor comment on its likelihood.

Comments

Written by JM on 2007-04-18 08:31:45

I inquired about a unit in Union Row a while back and I was told that Trader Joes was DEFINITELY NOT coming to the space. That retail space is made of a grocery store but as of now that is not going to happen. So maybe its still not too late to get it into DC USA

Written by on 2007-04-19 12:58:09

I tried multiple times to email Rob Carlson, but for some reason, his spam blocker blocks *everything* I try to send.

Written by on 2007-04-19 15:22:05

I just got off the phone with TJ's East Coast Operations. They said that as of now, they have nothing on their 2007 calendar slated to open in DC. For our purposes this is meaningless, since DCUSA isnt opening until March 2008 (she had no 2008 listings). She said typically new locations aren't announced on the website until WEEKS before they open.

She also said the best bet would be to talk to the developers/leasing agents/chamber of commerce as those all tend to leak info long before TJs does.

Written by on 2007-04-19 20:29:27

To clarify - I meant that the TJs person didn't have a 2008 list available - not that there was nothing on it.

Written by on 2007-04-19 21:42:52

It seems that there's a lot of support for TJs in CH. As we did with Whole Foods, we should send mass emails to TJs showing our support for a new CH store. We can do so via their website:

http://www.traderjoes.com/location_requests_form.aspx

It doesn't hurt to try!

Written by New2CH on 2007-04-20 05:58:49

I received this email from Peter Mallios. Explains why the situation is the way it is.

We would love to have a grocery store in DC USA. Unfortunately, every grocery store has turned us down, primarily because there is a brand new Giant across the street and due to the shape and size of our parcel we cannot give someone 50,000+ square feet so a smaller store would be at a competitive disadvantage. When we were talking to Whole Foods a year ago they were considering a two level store, but in the end they elected not to pursue the site. The smaller chains like Bloom are not aggressively expanding and the local groups like Rodmans or Sniders aren't expanding at all. I personally think Trader Joes would excel at the site but I cannot convince them to take the next step.

Having Target as a lead anchor has, in a manner of speaking, dictated the resulting tenant mix. Higher end anchors like Crate & Barrel want to be near traditional anchors, not discounters like Target or Wal-Mart, so we have Bed Bath & Beyond and Marshalls instead of other chains that the more affluent neighbors desire. Smaller upscale stores such as Banana Republic similarly don't want to be in a project anchored by discount chains. We have contacted everyone you mentioned and so far they have all said no.

We are currently pursuing several sit down restaurants, so I hope that we end up with some good choices for the neighborhood.

Written by cheshire on 2007-04-20 09:24:31

From a marketing standpoint, this makes a lot os sense and I don't think the lack of desirable stores is the fault of the leasing agent. But I still think there's room to get stores that appeal to more upscale residents (and working class residents)that aren't particularly upscale -- like Old Navy, H&M, Books-a-Million, West Elm, Forever 21, REI, CB2 (a less expensive store from Crate & Barrel)...

I'm afraid sit-down restaurants means TGIFridays and other "shopping mall" restaurants. But I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Target=Discount w/ Attitude | TJ's is m
Written by on 2007-04-20 18:14:09

Let's look at the MONEY. Here are three big developments coming online soon.

Highland Park - 229 units at an average price of $402,000*.

Kenyon Square - 153 units at an average price of $490,000*.

Allegro - >300 units at an average price of $350,000*.

If you total all these Condominium sales up, that's residential sales of roughly $377,000,000. $377 MILLION DOLLARS. The average monthly payment on these units will run from about $2,200 upwards to $4,000. If you think about that -- these new residents will have household income of roughly $90,000-$175,000 annually.

An increase of 682 households with incomes in that range will be able to support lots of different stores. Some will opt for the Giant, others will go to the shops & bodegas on Mt. Pleasant, and yes, some will drive/metro/cab or bike to Trader Joe's in West End or Whole Foods in Logan.

Trader Joe's, like Whole Foods, in my opinion is missing an incredible opportunity to get established in Columbia Heights, get their operations working well and build a LOT OF GOODWILL. They should refactor the Target "anchor" bullshit and grab as much space as possible. They probably have faulty logic about the city and only want to be 100% certain of their investment, like the West End store.

These are only rough estimates, so kids, don't be too literal about them. But think to yourself, WOW, these are only THREE of the new developments coming available. We all know there are more.

I invite anyone with better number crunching skills to enhance or improve this posting. Heck, if we came up with something really good, I'd FED-EX it to TJ's Headquaters.

(*) Averages are not weighted averages for those statistic freaks out there.

love to have TJs
Written by on 2007-06-21 12:13:36

I just sent an email to Mr. Carlson. Just in case it doesn't get through:

Dear Mr. Carlson,

We would love to have Trader Joe's in our neighborhood. I am a member of a 25 family babysitting cooperative that I know would regularly frequent your store. Today, I am off work (on a Thursday) sitting at Mayorga Cafe across from DCUSA and I can tell you we have a vibrant, busy neighborhood that includes an awesome and eclectic diversity of families. I think your company would do well here.

Best,

Frances

TJ's
Written by on 2008-04-06 15:52:22

For what it is worth, a v. friendly check out person at the West End TJ's told me they were going to build on in or near the busiest zip code for shoppers (outside the immediate West End/G'town zips). Turns out that is 20009 She said "soon." She also told me the West End TJ's is the second busiest in the country, after one in NYC.

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.

Last Updated ( Tuesday, 17 April 2007 )

Search Columbia Heights News or the entire web with:

Community Forum

Search

Advanced Search