Barracks Row struggles to define its shopping needs

is an article in the current issue of Washington Business Journal. It is being discussed on neighborhood lists and is creating angst.

It's a classic example of how the "Growth Machine" reproduces spaces with an eye toward increasing rents. The reality is that Barracks Row doesn't have the population and foot traffic to justify location decisions by such chains. If it did so, Hoopla, owned by founding members of the Barracks Row Main Street program, wouldn't have moved to Adams-Morgan.

But with this kind of talk and article, the commercial broker-based puffery helps support asking for higher rents. Marcus & Millichap has been pretty aggressive in DC over the past couple years, especially in emerging commercial districts such as H Street NE.

Of those chains, American Apparel is most willing to locate stores in emerging and transitioning commercial districts. I don't have a photo handy, but I recall seeing one of their stores on Hawthorne Boulevard in SE Portland in 2005, when there were no other national chains there (some regional chains like Pastaworks, Powell's Books, and McMenamin's Bagdad Theater... and a great independent noodle place with chain possibilities).