Carytown & Museum District News Events in Richmond Virginia, West of the Boulevard

June 16, 2008

19 Comments.

1. Some time last fall the WSJ had a front page of a rollercoaster/house of horrors, with the tracks offering two directions: inflation, recession. I think it that the track is just one track, with stagflation the path ahead.

   BP @ June 16th, 2008 at 12:34 pm

2. Part of it may be the ‘difficult business climate’ we are in but a good portion of it is greed. When I opened up my bookstore in RVA 3 years ago I checked out the rents in Carytown. The rates weren’t just premium the were stratospheric. Basically out of reach for any independent or start up. Those who have ventured in have done so with no wiggle room for economic downturn. I suspect we will see more closures in Carytown in the year ahead.

   Bookstore Piet @ June 16th, 2008 at 12:39 pm

3. What the heck is that landlord doing?

   What exactly happened to my precious Carytown Beer & Wine?!

   Jocelyn Balls @ June 16th, 2008 at 12:43 pm

4. I’m sorry – do you mean EQ3 in the main street-facing strip of that shopping center?

   I was only just in there a few weeks ago, too. It’s crazy to think there are two vacant spots in that shopping center.

   Daniel @ June 16th, 2008 at 12:58 pm

5. @Bookstore Piet: You know, I had a feeling that could be the situation. I’ve seen the same thing happen in other places (like trendy Red Bank, NJ) where landlords pump up rents.

   We’ll see how much rent they can get after more businesses move elsewhere, lowering property values.

   Daniel @ June 16th, 2008 at 5:49 pm

6. I know someone who was about to celebrate their 4th retail anniversary on the street. A few weeks shy they up and closed the store with a week or so notice. I think it was a rent increase too. Well, I guess there goes the end of First Thursdays too.

   lsaspacey @ June 16th, 2008 at 9:42 pm

7. I hate to detract from the outpouring of sympathy for EQ3, especially because I genuinely liked looking at their furniture. But, was anyone really buying that stuff? Richmond just doesn’t seem like a prime market for modern interior design. Their product was not cheap (by my standards) and seemed pretty impractical. I don’t doubt that rents predetermine the business plan of many Carytown merchants, but some of these places seem like they’re aiming for inaccessibility. Try as we might, Richmond ain’t ready for an installment of Georgetown chic. (probably projecting my own tastes)

   RVA Foodie @ June 17th, 2008 at 12:32 am

8. LaDIFFERENCE seems to be doing ok, though on a larger scale.

   It may be that Richmond just isn’t big enough for LaDIFF & EQ3 & whatever new furniture options have come up with the new malls.

   john m @ June 17th, 2008 at 7:29 am

9. Wild stab here, but LaDiff is also closer to the warehouse lofts, which likely are associated with a big chunk of the demand for chic/contemporary. (Like I said, wild stab.)

   BP @ June 17th, 2008 at 8:12 am

10. La Diff also has free chip ‘n’ dip, which I take wild stabs at while my better half gets decorating ideas.

    RVA Foodie @ June 17th, 2008 at 9:44 am

11. One would think landlords would aim for full occupancy but that is not always the case. The new landlord for my C’ville store on Rt29 is Federal Realty, the same people who own Willow Lawn. As leases are coming up for renewal they are increasing the rents from 50% to 300%. As tenants are starting to leave I asked the question – wouldn’t you rather have a full mall? The answer – if it’s full we aren’t charging enough…. My lease comes up in two years and I am already getting ready to move my store…

    Bookstore Piet @ June 17th, 2008 at 12:21 pm

12. Wow, I touched a nerve here.

    Well, and for good reason. Nobody wants to see the great shops of Carytown go the way of the dodo bird. But one begins to think that, unfortunately, given the “current business conditions” and attitudes as expressed by landlords such as Bookstore Piet mentioned, it’s amazing to me that anybody is able to make anything work.

    I suppose these rapacious harpies who cling to Carytown properties to exact the last granule of tribute from them won’t give a fig if we see boards going up over windows — just as existed in the mid-1980s before the merchants then came together and said, to paraphrase, “Yes, we can.” And they did.

    But I have read in newspaper accounts in the past 15 years merchants expressing anxieties about rent, and as one store owner philosophically put, this kind of argument has gone on since the Middle Ages: the baron land owner and the tenant farmer.

    Barring pitchforks and torches, (And where would the aggrieved parties march these days? City Hall? Rental offices?) there is little to do but move off the street and seek to find less expensive space, or just get out of retail altogether. This is not quite the U.S. small-time-operator- who-starts-his-own ideal that we’ve been taught.

    It’s hard out here for an entrepreneur.

    There are solutions, I think. Retrenchment among the merchants for greater cooperation and cooperative advertising. A PR person for the community, and a bunch of other stuff I’ve yammered on about in this precinct.

    Maybe, just maybe, with the election of the next mayor, a Neighborhood Teams process might be reintroduced, and people can sit around a table and talk about these matters. We’re all in it together, after all.

    As we can learn from the dodo, adaption is necessary to avoid extinction. Except in the dodo’s case, evolution could not compete against men who, not understanding the critter, killed it off.

    That being said, I am not businessperson, just a concerned resident, who worries that the quality that I so love about Carytown–its feisty independence–is eroding because of crushing “business conditions.”

    Don’t know if anything can be gleaned from antique ornithology about our present predicament–but the dodo may have not been as dumb or as fat as is commonly held.

    The bird had existed for millions of years. Most of what we know of how the creature looked is derived from 17th century caricatures, and perhaps captive birds brought to Europe and overfed.

    “Animals that evolve in isolation frequently exhibit somewhat bizarre traits, and a giant flightless bird is surely on the extreme end of avian evolution.
    But that doesn’t make the dodo a failure. David Quammen, in his seminal book on island biogeography and extinctions The Song of the Dodo, calls the species an evolutionary success; it adapted well to local conditions.

    Having reached Mauritius, the birds adapted, probably over several million years, to living on an island that had no predators and a wealth of fruit lying on the ground.
    They gradually traded their ability to fly for the ability to store larger amounts of fat that would carry them through times of scarcity. To store the fat, they got bigger, making it more difficult to fly.
    Surrendering the ability to fly, and thus to elude enemies, he says, was an easy trade-off; there were no enemies to flee.”–from Nat’l Geo, below.

    http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/02/0227_0228_dodo.html

    http://www.birds.mu/Extinct/Dodo.htm

    Harry @ June 17th, 2008 at 1:35 pm

13. @Jocelyn: Carytown Wine & Beer closed up in March or so. Low sales + high rent. He’s working over at the northside Once Upon A Vine now, should you wish to get it straight from the horse’s mouth.

    BGW @ June 17th, 2008 at 7:27 pm

14. We live two blocks from Carytown, and if it weren’t for Mary Angela’s, Plan 9 and World of Mirth, our family would never go there anymore. When the old businesses got pushed out (Narnia, Carytown Books, Rostov’s, the old New York Deli) and their spaces taken-up by more upscale stores, there just wasn’t much there to interest us.

    lynnie @ June 18th, 2008 at 10:21 am

15. Not that this helps really, because it is just shifting the Cary Court empty spots, but I have been told by Schwarzchild’s employees that they are moving to the larger former Beer and Wine location by late fall/early winter.

    Fiona @ June 18th, 2008 at 10:59 am

16. There’s now a Verizon store where my friend’s shop, Lava, used to be. The West End is creeping in…

    Parker @ June 18th, 2008 at 11:20 am

17. OK OK. Not to bring politics into this discussion, but idea man and life-long Democratic party insider (he chaired the state comittee) Paul Goldman. Whatever you think of Wilder now, Goldman was the brains behind the operation of getting the first black man in the South elected first lieutenant governor, the governor of Virginia.The book about it is called, “When Hell Froze Over.”

    He’s a policy wonk, with a degrees in business and public administration. He was part of Wilder’s administration until he was let go. He tried running for First District representative on Council and was defeated when big money mobilized against him.

    Today he issued this announcement (he’s very good at issuing announcements):

    Let’s Make Carytown into a no-car, no-bus, no-bike, green, shopper friendly “Street Fair”

    (Richmond) – Paul Goldman, candidate for Mayor, proposed today that “we must take bold action to put Carytown, one of our greatest and yet in my view undiscovered assets, on the national map by remaking Cary Street from the Boulevard to Thompson into a no-car, no-bus, yes even no-bike green, shopper friendly “Street Fair” that will have be the talk of our rival cities up and down the East Coast of the United States.”

    “If you walk this area, you will see today far too many vacant storefronts, and far too many missed opportunities.
    We know from other annual events the potential to draw people, to create excitement, to turn that stretch of Cary Street into the talk of not just our region, but well-beyond.”

    In a statement, Goldman continued:

    “It is time to unleash the potential of Carytown, and to do that, we need to throw out the old rules and open that stretch of Cary Street to the imagination, the ingenuity and the innovation that we need to take Richmond to the next level.

    “What I envision is a small business retail sector unlike anything in our area, our state, perhaps the entire East Coast. We need to take the cars, the busses, yes even the bikes off of Cary Street, and leave it strictly to the people to stroll up an down at their leisure, shopping, sipping a drink, pushing a stroller, talking with friends, and to whatever the merchants and others have set-up on the pavement or the sidewalks to attract customers.

    We need to plant trees, gardens, redo store fronts, and do those things that will remake this stretch of Cary Street into something unique to Richmond, unmatched by any of our East Coast rivals.

    There will be substantial capital investments necessary and in that regard, the city will do it’s part in as many creative ways as the best minds in our town can develop. I am a doer, not a talker. So a Goldman Administration will be there working the front-lines of change doing it’s part.

    We can to this, we must do this, for Richmond.

    I am certain others can add and improve on this concept, and I encourage them to do so.

    But we need to turn the page on the old thinking that has held us back.

    The potential of Carytown to generate millions in new revenue for our city – and thus provide funds to underwrite other needed neighborhood and community revitalization – is tremendous.

    We need to do it for the future of Richmond.

    As Mayor, I will take the lead in working with others to make it happen.

    ——————————30———————

    You want to know more about him:
    http://www.richmond.com/news-features/24292

    ttp://floricane.typepad.com/buttermilk/2008/05/richmonds-nex-3.html

    Harry @ June 20th, 2008 at 6:03 pm

18. I own abusiness in Carytown. Rents really are not bad in comparison to other high profile shopping areas. Half of what you’d pay in Shot Pump or Old Town Alexandria. Believe me, I’ve looked.

    As far as closing Carytown to car traffic, I think he’s out of touch with the merchants. Here’s a short list of things that would help:
    1. Do away with parking time limits. When the district gets too crowded with cars and shoppers, we’ll let you know.
    2. Give us a Welcome Center and a sign on 64 and 195 that says “Historic Shopping District this exit”
    3. Patrol the district with at least 2 or 3 dedicated police officers into the evening (thAt means until the bars close, not 6pm.
    4. Crack down on all panhandlers and graffiti.
    5. Give incentive to business owners to stay open until 8pm. Tax credits? We need to have COLLECTIVE later hours to compete with larger shopping centers in the county.
    5. Beautification. Planters. Benches. Fresh paint.
    There’s much that can be done without disrupting traffic patterns and turning the museum district into a parking lot and pissing shoppers off even more. I lost two customers just last week who were pissed because they were ticketed after getting lunch then shopping in two stores. They are gone now, doomed to shop in malls instead of in the city.

    gobigscott @ June 22nd, 2008 at 9:10 am

19. BTW, I walked C’town yesterday AM and counted 18 storefronts that were currently not open for business.

    This count INCLUDES places that may be open soon, but aren’t. Places like Play n Trade and what used to be HI.

    About 12-14 however, are currently for lease.

    Daniel @ June 23rd, 2008 at 9:56 am

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