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Friday Question of the Day – What Would Work Here?
The old Caribou Coffee spot on 18th Street in Adams Morgan has been vacant for ages. It seems insane to me because this is such a prime location. Many folks have probably walked by this space dozens of times. It’s not a huge space so I’m curious what you think would work in this location. What would work is not necessarily a dream retail outlet, rather I’m curious what you think would realistically be successful in this spot. Any ideas?
Category: Adams Morgan, Friday Question of the Day, Retail
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how about a jumbo slice pizza joint?
bookstore.
maybe a ‘pop-up’ store location. one month a jetblue cafe, another a micro walmart.
I was more curious as to how Caribou Coffee went out of business with such a prime location. Perhaps PoP could do a little investigative journalism?
and what is going on with the old DCCD space?
More importantly, how come the former DCCD spot across the alley has been vacant for years?
The store will be called “Read.” It will be a place to help the customer sort through the millions of books available in the world, sample them, discuss them and ultimately purchase them, either as traditional paper books, downloaded recorded books or devices such as Kindle.
Knowledgeable and erudite staff will help you select books like a good sommilier suggests wines. You can sit on a couch and try out the first 20 pages of any downloaded book. It will be an innovative new way to combine the targeted online search of Amazon with the joyous serendipity of secondhand bookstore browsing, tossed with your fondly remembered childhood library or secondhand book store like Idle Times.
The space will have comfy couches for book groups to meet, serving coffee, wine and packaged snacks (dried squid, malted milk balls, etc.) There will be little cages in the back for unruly spawn, and blue tables with crayons and cupcakes for the good ones, (plus kittens every Mon. Wed. and Fri.)
The walls will be papered with book reviews and in the summer, the back alley will offer a pit of coverless paperbacks to lounge about in.
Good luck getting publishers to give you 20 pages to read for free— or were you implying that the store would buy one copy of each of the millions of books?
business idea FAIL
Additionally, having hipsters sit around for hours hanging out reading book fragments for free isn’t exactly a great business idea to rise the cash for the rent.
You need something where you can get people in quickly – pay for something and out the door.
Um, I think Victoria was kidding. (Right Victoria…? I hope?) Anon self-awareness FAIL.
I think that’s called a library.
The real deal:
There are limitations and obstacles, both physical and regulatory.
There’s no ventilation at this location, so no real cooking is allowed.
(There are high end residential apartments above this store.)
It’s a very visible corner, but the rent at around $5,000 a month is up there. The location is within the liquor moratorium area as well making it quite a challenge for an economically viable venture that is non food and beverage.
There are the anti-business regulators including the historical preservation board that turned down the property owner’s good plans next door and across from this property which also sadly remains vacant because of excessive demands last year.
Then there are our lovely elitist, inhospitable, I-know-better-than-you Adams Morgan Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners -elected non paid volunteers that like to stick their great weight advisory noses in every one’s business without license because they think they have dominion over everyone’s livelihood with all their self empowerment and delusions of self aggrandizement. One of them is now running for DC councilman.
Yes, it’s quite a challenge in an environment that stands in the way of progress and simply does not welcome private business investment, risk takers, builders that just won’t bother in an environment they’re just not welcome.
It’s a miracle that non food and beverage merchants manage to survive like the flower shop next door in the picture above open seven days a week or Toro Mata Peruvian Artifacts across the street.
Then there are people like us, the fault finders on this blog, that nit pick, whine and complain about this and that and retail prices like in the nice space that just opened up across and just down the street at Lynn Skynear’s in a recent post here.
Think about it. Would you take the risk ?
+1
This is a huge problem for our city. I really think that a freer, less hostile business environment would do wonders for a lot of the social problems we spend so much time and money (and blog commenting!) to solve. No, it’s not a silver bullet, but it would be a fundamental shift that would gradually improve things over time.
Maybe all the bloggers can bum-rush the ANC elections?
Seriously, you can get elected 15 to 14 at an ANC meeting. You can bring your city block and get elected to an ANC position.
But then you actually have to show up for all the BS meetings and listen to the whining.
That’s only if the seat is vacant. If not, then you’d need to recall the sitting ANC commissioner and then if your recall was successfull, then you could have a special election and then you could probably be elected by 15 of your neighbors….
But you’re totally right about the rest. Folks love to bitch about the ANCs, but no one ever seems to want to step up and do something about it…
only need 15 people? we should all go down and elect Pennywise. he’s probably not doing anything.
Why can’t you run against the sitting commissioner?
Sure, you might have to campaign a bit, but when they win 100-3 (3 write ins) it’s not because people are voting “for” them but just because they check a name as opposed to no-voting.
The biggest problem you might face is that a few voters recognize the incumbent’s name and vote for them because they’re buddies, or because they know she’s an old biddie who will object to any development whatsoever.
following up:
Only a single ANC election was contested in ANC 1C, which covers the Adams-Morgan area, in 2008:
http://www.dcboee.org/election_info/election_results/election_result_new/results_final_gen.asp?electionid=2&rtype=&precinct=1C&party=ANC&prev=0&result_type=3
The problem, truth be told, is that those that are willing to devote and commit real time and are lured into this public service on the ANC mostly come from failed personal lives.
They couldn’t make it in the real private sector world, so they seek refuge in the comfortable, unaccountable public sector with little or no supervision by leaving their bartender jobs, going to endless unproductive community organizing meetings, getting elected, and then seek a couple neighborhood landlords and business owners to really give it to (in the name of the community of course).
Then low and behold in a short year or two your hired for a full time public salaried position on staff with Councilman Graham’s office, and then Chairman of the Adams Morgan ANC (Wilson Reynolds or Bryan Weaver) acting with arrogant dominion over your neighbors lives and their livelihood -all in the name of the community of course.
They are really of bunch self-serving losers that could never run a business themselves or ever had to make a payroll, and find themselves for the first time in their sad life in a position of percieved dominance over others who do real accountable work keeping their shop open seven days a week trying to make ends meet, instead of just being the public servants they were elected to be.
The vacant Adams Morgan store fronts are quite telling. They are really quite small; small self serving tyrants with delusions of grandeaur that just perpetuate mediocrity at best and misery at worst for everyone in the end including their constituents which they could really care less about. -All in the name of the community of course.
+1
I agree with this. See, for example, BYOB restaurants all over Philly. Drives me nuts — if DC wasn’t so hard on businesses, I’d quit my job and start one in Bloomingdale right now.
A church? Or perhaps a shelter/halfway house? Or, rounding out the trifecta of most likely things to occupy a storefront in DC, a crepe store!!!
I second the crepe idea (although I sense a bit of sarcasm). The shop at Gallery Place is delectable.
A Ten Thousand Villages. Or a pub. With kittens (I like that idea). Mrow.
I love kittens! That would be great!
The anonymous poster at 29 January 2010 5:14 AM got a lot of it right. The combination of a badly through out space, high rent and too many regulations from multiple levels of GOV and planning boards keeps this space empty.
Indeed. Memories of shopping at DCCD are distant, fading. Has to be 7 or 8 years since it closed. Totally depressing.
But what I don’t get is this. The proper rent for a space should really just be a reflection of the highest price a business will pay to rent it. It may be that the owner of the space WANTS $5k per month, but obviously that’s not happening. So why aren’t natural market forces acting to get the price down to the point where someone will bite? It’s really just a reverse auction…drop the price until you have a tenant.
try telling that to a lender
I said the same thing to starbucks the other day. “I’m only willing to pay you $3 for that cup…it’s just sitting there. No one’s buying it.”
Then someone came in 15 minutes later and bought the $5 cup of coffee. Apparently they had enough money to wait me out.
Who knew!
And what’s the carrying cost on that coffee sitting around for 15 minutes bs carrying cost on property sitting empty for years?
And what’s the opportunity cost of entering into a 2 to 5 year lease at a lower rate?
Sure there are carrying costs, but it’s not a “reverse auction” because they have to balance the lost rent in the short term versus the lost rent at a lower rate in the long term.
A scooter dealership. Should have gone where the Starbucks at 18th/Columbia, but this spot would work too.
+1 on the scooter dealership. Fits the demographic of the area: young urban hipsters flush with dad’s cash. I like it.
Whose Dad has cash these days?
true enough.
Bagel shop/Jewish deli (If you could make the bagels on site).
Most landlords prefer long-term leases; they would rather hold out and have it vacant than have someone lease it at a lower rate.
As for the DCCD space, it’s owned by Bill Duggan, owner of Madam’s Organ. He got into a row with DCHRB over his plans to put up the iron work from the old Blackie’s House of Beef. When they told him no, he took his toys and went home.
A Jimmy John’s! It could stay open til 3am on the weekends and make bank! No real cooking involved, either.
OMG yes. There’s a JJ’s in Alexandria and that is TOO FAR.
MPD substation.
GREAT IDEA!! With a huge drunk tank/holding cell. It would only have to be in operation Friday and Saturday nights from 9pm-5am.
a starbucks.
The problem, truth be told, is that those that are willing to devote and commit real time and are lured into this public service on the ANC mostly come from failed personal lives.
They couldn’t make it in the real private sector world, so they seek refuge in the comfortable, unaccountable public sector with little or no supervision by leaving their bartender jobs, going to endless unproductive community organizing meetings, getting elected, and then seek a couple neighborhood landlords and business owners to really give it to (in the name of the community of course).
Then low and behold in a short year or two your hired for a full time public salaried position on staff with Councilman Graham’s office, and then Chairman of the Adams Morgan ANC (Wilson Reynolds or Bryan Weaver) acting with arrogant dominion over your neighbors lives and their livelihood -all in the name of the community of course.
They are really of bunch self-serving losers that could never run a business themselves or ever had to make a payroll, and find themselves for the first time in their sad life in a position of percieved dominance over others who do real accountable work keeping their shop open seven days a week trying to make ends meet, instead of just being the public servants they were elected to be.
The vacant Adams Morgan store fronts are quite telling.
They are really quite small; small self serving tyrants with delusions of grandeaur that just perpetuate mediocrity at best and misery at worst for everyone in the end including their constituents which they could really care less about. -All in the name of the community of course.
The business owners have real private sector lives, a business to run, and regular payrolls to meet and don’t have much of voice on these blogs.
Geez, give me a break.
This is what the DC Gov. website says about ANCs:
Neighborhood Democracy – The Advisory Neighborhood Commissions consider a wide range of policies and programs affecting their neighborhoods, including traffic, parking, recreation, street improvements, liquor licenses, zoning, economic development, police protection, sanitation and trash collection, and the District’s annual budget. In each of these areas, the intent of the ANC legislation is to ensure input from an advisory board that is made up of the residents of the neighborhoods that are directly affected by government action. The ANCs are the body of government with the closest official ties to the people in a neighborhood.
If your current ANC reps are doing such a crap job, then stop your bellyaching and run for the job yourself. Based on all of these posts, all you have to do is show up to get elected. How hard can it be? Then you get to take responsibility for the problem instead of just complaining about it. Or maybe that’s the real problem.
That is toooo funny, @holidaygirl – as soon as I read this post a Jimmy John’s was my immediate reaction! I was going down the comments so excited to post my Jimmy John’s idea and you beat me to the punch!
But seriously – Jimmy John’s would be a hit. They taste great drunk and sober, are affordable, super fast, no cooking required.
LOVE IT!
What’s a Jimmy John’s?
It’s true. We pay DC real property taxes on capped assessments in our homes with the lowest tax rate.
Commercial properties are taxes at the highest DC rate on real world assessments having to then turn around and charge higher rents then outside DC. The business owners in them pay a myriad of taxes and fees regularly just to stay open. They are the real source of most city revenues that provide the public sector salaries and they get treated like sh…
HERE IS THE BEST IDEA EVER. A one stop anti-hangover shop. Call it Hangover-OVER. It would sell post-drinking NA cocktails with vitamin complexes specifically designed to prevent a hangover. It would include hydration stations and also would serve ant-hangover foods. It will be open from 1AM to 5AM and then it would re-open for quick brunch food designed to stop a hang-over after one has started. Everyone will swear it worked.
It’s hard for me to buy all of these claims about how bad the business environment is in DC when so many small businesses keep opening up in DC. U Street and Columbia Heights are completely different places now than they were when I moved to DC 10 years ago. Tons of new businesses have opened in these areas. A bunch of new businesses are opening up in Petworth.
Maybe the reason why this place is empty is this thing that we happen to be in the middle of – you know, the recession.
Front business for a pot dealer.
Nah, already too much competition on that block.
The national chain stores haven’t hit 18th Street hard (as yet) like in Columbia Heights, Marcus A.
In this recession, we in D.C. have a uniquely stable economy as the federal city and aren’t near as bad as many parts of the rest of the country.
Also, despite harsh 10% unemployment, the United States economy in its worst year ($15 trillion GDP) is better, still steady, and stronger than any other economy in the world, China included with $6 trillion GDP (but gaining).
As for this thread, I’m on the side of the productive shop owner that works and opens shop seven days a week struggling and providing much more than most of us comfortable city dwellers
than on the side of the haughty Historic Board or the ANC tyrants or those of us who’ve never experienced running a business or regularly meeting a payroll
like too many here who are more like reclining arm chair fault finders with the luxury of spare time to write here having no idea what is to provide and provide and put up with an inhospitable city government that only takes and takes and takes and only knows and invents more and more ways of taking when your livelihood is on the line.
Jimmy Johns is a sandwich chain. The first place I ever saw one was a small town in Wisconsin (not sure where it originated.) It is popular in college towns – in areas that have a lot of bars/street traffic (very similar to 18th street!.) I know there is one in downtown Austin, TX near the 7th street nightlife district and it is always packed. Its not like a Subway where there are a ton of choices of toppings, but their basic menu is pretty tasty. It is really fast too. They get you in and out!
Looks like there is one in College Park and one out in Alexandria…. go try it out!!
What about one of those shared office spaces? Like the one in Dupont.
Toy store.
An MPD substation is an excellent idea, however, the real estate is too valuable.
SEX SHOP!
The Caribou space when built was FORCED to have no venting and no cooking, therefore not even a bagel or donut place could go there. This was foisted on Adams Morgan by Jim Graham and the Kalorama Citizen’s Assn. under the guise of “mixed use.” Now prime space sits empty “dumbing down the street and other businesses.
U street and Columbia Heights development have been subsidized by the DC gov in various ways, whether a taxpayer funded $56 million parking garage, tax abatements, developer deals, Metro stations or Circulator buses for which THEY DO NOT PAY. Our local businesses are heavily taxed through a BID that helps pay for the Circulator. There is NO BID or those extra taxes from U Street or Columbia Heights or Mount Pleasant, but they have as much, or more business district focused Circulator service than does Adams Morgan.
Here’s my idea: It’s a bizness called “Sober Up & Go”. It sells high-priced specialty water (house brand has 7 herbs said to cure hangover), cupcakes, macarons (the “cupcake killer” from Paris), strong coffee, Emergen-C packets, calls a taxi for you for a little fee, and gives taxi drivers a discount on above. Also serves as a meet-up spot for people out who can’t remember where they parked their car.
You’re welcome.