The entry of Walmart to DC and their choice of particular locations also closes off other and better opportunities

The Washington Post reports further on the Walmart story, that Walmart plans four stores in the city, of 80,000 to 120,000 s.f. in size. Clearly, these are not the very small "Marketside" type stores the company is testing in Arizona.

Washington Post graphic.

I am familiar with three of the locations, and each would be better served by a different type of development than a Walmart big box, even one smaller than their typical Supercenter.

1. Georgia Avenue NW at Missouri Avenue NW

The Curtis Chevrolet site at Georgia and Missouri Avenues NW, coincidentally about nine blocks from where I live now, is a site that had a number of plans bandied about, mostly around multiunit housing. Both Abdo Development and Foulger-Pratt had plans for the site at one time or another.

Although neighborhood activists weren't keen on adding housing there, not understanding, in my opinion anyway, that the reason for marginal retail along Georgia Avenue has to do with the overabundance of space and the relative paucity of residences, residents, and therefore customers.

Curtis Chevrolet site, Georgia Avenue NW. (Washington Business Journal? photo).

2. New York Avenue and Bladensburg Road

The real estate crash destroyed the possibility of the development, at least in the intermediate term, of a high quality gateway project on New York Avenue (at Bladensburg Road) that the Abdo Company wanted to build across 15 acres or so at a key entry point into the city from the east (via the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and US-50/I-95).

The "ArborPlace" development proposal by Abdo Development for New York Avenue, even in this less grand iteration, is a more grand approach than that likely to be initiated by a Walmart.

This area is currently is a cesspool of auto-oriented businesses that collectively look pretty s**ty. (Image below: At the intersection of New York Avenue and Bladensburg Road, looking east.)

And there has been talk and various planning exercises over the past decades for improving the experiential quality of New York Avenue, including the New York Avenue Corridor Study and a dumb proposal to have a motor coach depot for visiting tourist buses located at the junction of New York and Florida Avenues.

3. 801 New Jersey Avenue NW

This site is at the northeast corner of New Jersey Avenue and H Street NW and has been underutilized for 20+ years. When I first moved to DC in 1987, there was a stalled construction effort to build a vocational high school there. In 1990 maybe, it was torn down and has been a parking lot for the GPO since. After that a development group, including participation of the H Street Community Development Corporation, got control of the site and I guess they haven't been able to do anything.

Google Map.

But think of that site. It's roughly equidistant between two subway stations, Judiciary Square and Union Station. It's across the street from a forthcoming development across the I-395 between Massachusetts Avenue and E Street NW. It's down the street from a number of multiunit apartment and condominium buildings on Massachusetts Avenue, and is a kind of gateway site as you enter the eastern part of the H Street corridor.

At least I hope there is some sort of mixed use development with housing above, for the Georgia Avenue and 801 New Jersey Avenue NW locations. Who'd want to live in apartments at New York Avenue and Bladensburg Road? But maybe they could put another cheap motel on the upper floors.

The CityVista development at 5th Street between K and L Streets NW is a mixed use building, with housing above (apartments and/or condominiums), with retail, including a big box grocery store, an upscale Safeway, on the ground floor.

Putting a Walmart at the Georgia Avenue and New York Avenue locations, in my opinion, destroys the possibility for substantive broader revitalization of these areas for at least the next 20 years. Putting a Walmart at 801 New Jersey Avenue merely misuses the incredible opportunity that redevelopment of the site offers for postive contribution to a variety of objectives and leverages the other developments in the area.

You know the old saw when 2+2 = more than 4. You don't get that with a Walmart when it comes to multiplicative revitalization opportunities.

I have always said that I am not against development, but I am against crappy development, and against projects that don't have the capability to further other development and revitalization objectives.

As I wrote in this piece in 2006, " Jumping in bed with the devil--it's hot, but will you survive the heat?," Wal-mart's business model is oriented towards getting 100% of the business for a customer, not leaving anything for other businesses. This is counter to traditional grocery stores or department stores, which were anchors for business districts, and complementary to the development and success of other types of business.

This is a lesson in both the real estate recession and its impact, as well as for neighborhood activists and how they participate in development processes, at least with regard to the Georgia Avenue site.

Had the residents in that area worked and worked with the process, they could have gotten a project in gear before the real estate recession hit, one that likely would have had more positive longer term revitalization impact than what we will in fact be getting, even though I suppose I might shop at the store on occasion, just as I do at Target (and even there I am frequently nonplussed that the store merchandising selection isn't sufficiently urban-specific and oriented).

P.S. Food deserts and the Walmart impact

The Georgia Avenue and New Jersey Avenue (there will be a Safeway, a Harris-Teeter, and a Giant all within about 5 blocks of this store location) proposed Walmart stores do nothing regarding "food deserts." Even the New York Avenue store doesn't do all that much, there is a Safeway at Hechinger Mall, and an Aldi is coming in across the street (they have great dishwashing soap and store brand oatmeal). Allegedly a Shoppers Food Warehouse is coming to the South Dakota Station development at Fort Lincoln, and there is a Shoppers just over the line in Maryland in Colmar Manor.

I guess the East Capitol location will have some impact in far northeast with regard to supermarket access, but as I said, I don't know that area that well, to be able to comment authoritatively.