Carytown, an amazing retail district in Richmond Virginia

Photo by Berry Fine Arts.

Last August, I went to the Carytown Watermelon Festival as market research for a street festival that I thought I was organizing in my neighborhood (it was cancelled, against my wishes and recommendations, and it's why I'm no longer involved with H Street Main Street).

I was blown away by the strength of the Cary Street commercial district, and I want to go back and photograph every block, and write a case study about its success--it is the longest stretch of primarily independently-owned retail and services businesses that I have seen. There are a handful of chains, and some branches of regional chains, such as the Plan 9 record store.

New "Rebuilding Place" photo correspondent Steve Pinkus (a transportation planner that I have run into over the years at various public meetings on urban design issues, plus, Steve has the distinction of coming to the first presentation that I ever made about Main Street on H Street--an 80+ slide presentation that in retrospect would have been better as a lecture to a college class) has shared with me some of his Carytown photos, including this one. THANK YOU STEVE!

Here's what I wrote about Carytown last August:

First, Richmond, Cary Street, the neighborhood bordering Carytown, WAS CLEAN!!!!!!!!!!! Our greater neighborhood, particularly H Street, is disgusting...

Second, the Carytown commercial district is pretty amazing. It's 10-12 blocks of virtually all independent retail (some exceptions = McDonalds, 7-11, Hair Cuttery). At one end of the district, adjacent to the freeway, there are two commercial shopping centers typical of the suburbs. One has a Kroger Supermarket, the other Ukrop's (the major local supermarket chain) and each has a few additional stores like CVS and Blockbuster. On the regular strip there is a "park and shop" like H Street Connection, although the Cary Street version is historic, comparable to the one in Cleveland Park. There is also an old movie theater (the Byrd) that shows second run films. I was rushed and I didn't think to go up to see if it was open for tours. Here is the official website.

Plan 9, an independent VA record store with 4-5 branches would have been a great store to have on our corridor -- they have an interior stage and bands do CD promotion parties and stuff there (they had their own lineup of performers yesterday). How could we do this with Nat's store? Etc.

Dean commented that he didn't see any bars. But there are many restaurants, and many sell alcoholic beverages. Virtually every storefront was occupied. Virtually all were in great shape although some were dingy, but nothing like H Street. There was almost no equivalent new out-of-character construction. Cary Street can be thought of maybe as a long Takoma Park, or maybe 14th Street, but the street is much narrower across (like Takoma). The width of the street is maybe 1/2 the width of H Street.

The district is probably successful because there isn't much competition against it in the Richmond metropolitan area -- the Fan District probably and Downtown-Shockoe Bottom-River District is more entertainment oriented, but not like here i.e., Bethesda, 12 Main Streets in DC, plus other DC commercial districts (Tenleytown, Georgetown, Downtown, Friendship Heights, lower Georgia Avenue, etc.), Alexandria, Takoma Park, Silver Spring, Kensington, Hyattsville, various districts in Arlington including Clarendon and Ballston, etc.

Photo by Steve Pinkus.

Third, the Festival has a gimmick, watermelon sales that benefit local charities (a bowl for $1). Alan has pointed out that there can be negative associations with this particular food... But something like this I worth thinking about long term or as part of the proposed Spring Festival (to be launched no sooner than 2006). It's a way to build an association with a supermarket company that we could then entice onto the H Street corridor.

Fourth, because Cary Street has wide sidewalks, many of the stores had sidewalk events in front of their stores. We can't really do this because we have such narrow sidewalks on H Street. I was surprised that a number of the stores were closed. I guess many Cary St. stores are closed on Sundays, but I would've thought they would have opened specially for that day.

Fifth, many of the stores had booths in the middle of the street as part of the line of booths that went down the entire length of the commercial district (other booths included food vending, other vendors, including things like home repair, jacuzzis, artists, etc.).

But in any case, we need to really think about how to promote our businesses that can participate and add unique dimensions to what we are trying to do... such as getting Betty Hart of "With These Hands" to have a hat booth, or De Place (Brother Bey) or the new place at 1309 H to sell traditional things like incense instead of just getting outside vendors. Hopefully Nat could have a big table selling CDs, instead of just getting outsiders, etc.

Sixth, except in one instance (for a sponsored stage by one of the stores that was more like a booth, and not part of the Festival-organized programming), they did not have raised stages. It might be worth considering this for the music stages this year to reduce costs.

Seventh, of course, I got a whole lot of other things out of this trip too, but they aren't all relevant to this. (Although there is a great Carytown map that could be a model for us for the next edition of the directory.) And there are a lot of contacts and specific details that aren't worth listing all out here.
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Here's a blog entry by an author that did a book signing at a Carytown bookstore, confirming the quality of the Carytown experience, as she wrote:

"Not being savvy about Richmond geography, I took along both a Yahoo map and directions from Lelia Taylor, the owner, but the shop proved very easy to find. And it's probably a good thing I didn't know before I went what a dangerous area Carytown is. Not physically dangerous, of course; it's an area filled with ethnic restaurants and small, fascinating-looking stores--the sort of place where one could easily commit serious retail. Lelia says there are only three chain stores in a twelve block stretch of Cary Street--two grocery stores and a CVS drugstore--so all the rest of the shops are not only temptations, but unique tempations."
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Carytown is worth checking out by all those interested in Main Street-like commercial district revitalization. Two things to think about though: (1) it's not too diverse racially; and (2) it does make me realize that a lot of what makes Main Street work is the creation of ways to satisfy desires for conspicuous consumption. A couple days after I went there I spoke to someone affiliated with the merchants association there. He told me that they aren't a Main Street program, although clearly they use the principles, if not formally, in substance. And he said that the association has been working diligently for more than two decades (!) to get the retail right. Stores still close, and new ones come along.