Barnes & Noble Returns to Georgetown Building it Vacated in 2011

Barnes & Noble is turning a page on its history and heading back to Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown neighborhood, the company announced. After leaving the area — and the same building — in 2011, the book giant inked a 33,754-square-foot lease for three floors at 3040 M Street NW.

Marx Realty Adds Immersive Gamebox to Historic DC Office Building

Immersive Gamebox has inked a 4,500-square-foot lease at The Grogan, a five-story office building in Washington, D.C.

Formula 1-themed entertainment concept coming to Union Market area

An adult arcade-centered eatertainment concept featuring Formula 1 racing simulators is coming to Northeast D.C., as part of a much larger, national expansion for London-based F1 Arcade.

EastBanc locks in pair of Italian home furnishing retailers for Georgetown’s Cady’s Alley

The leases are part of a larger flurry of deals that have helped lower Georgetown’s retail vacancy rate to around 13.5%, per Dochter & Alexander Retail Advisors, from nearly 18% during the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

New York City ice cream brand Van Leeuwen to open first location in Times Square

Van Leeuwen Ice Cream, which is known for its made-from-scratch dairy and vegan ice cream, has opened 17 stores in Manhattan and 24 in New York City.

Los Angeles Clothier Rails Replaces Vans in Georgetown

Los Angeles-based clothing brand Rails will open its first store in Washington, D.C., in Georgetown, according to EastBanc, who facilitated the deal on behalf of owner, the Alafoginis Family.

Tracking D.C.’s Bakery ‘Explosion’: What’s Behind The Rise Of The Region’s Tastiest Retail Trend

A few months into the pandemic, Jason and Yuri Oberbillig began selling Japanese and French-inspired pastries from a tiny counter at the front of Cleveland Park Italian restaurant Al Volo. The compact pop-up operation, SakuSaku Flakerie, allowed guests to order a coffee and pastry to go or bring their goodies to the serene patio behind the restaurant, well before the dinner crowd arrived.

CREBA Honors Top D.C. Brokers At Annual Awards Ceremony

Four hundred D.C. commercial real estate professionals came together Tuesday evening at The Ritz-Carlton in the West End to bestow honors to the top-performing brokers and most respected executives in the industry.

Member-Only Vet Clinic Parker & Ace Debuting in DC

Parker & Ace, a full-service, membership-based veterinary clinic, will open its first location in Washington, D.C., later this month. The clinic signed a 2,700-square-foot lease at 501 H Street NE with landlord Douglas Development, which acquired the property in 2013 for $5 million. At the time, the developer demolished an existing building and replaced it with a six-story, 22,165-square-foot mixed-use building with three levels of retail and 28 apartment units.

Georgetown Landlords Are Going Small To Stage A Big Comeback

After ceding ground to upstart neighborhoods, one of the oldest retail destinations in D.C. has mounted a comeback. Georgetown has seen retail vacancy fall by 7 percentage points since it peaked at 20% in the spring of 2021, according to Dochter & Alexander Retail Advisors. The submarket has roughly 1.6M SF of total retail space. Direct-to-consumer brands and smaller tenants looking for a prestige address to showcase their products are leading the charge, retail brokers in the area told Bisnow.

Retail Vacancy Tops 20% In Downtown D.C. While Suburban Storefronts Fill Up

Retail vacancies have begun to come down from their pandemic highs across the Metropolitan Washington region, but not in Downtown D.C. The District’s central business district’s vacancy has risen from 6.6% in winter 2020 to 20.7% this summer, according to new research by retail advisory firm Dochter & Alexander. The East End‘s vacancy rose from 9.2% to 21.2%. Combined, there is more than 800K SF of vacant high street retail in the heart of the nation’s capital. Those office-heavy areas are lagging behind the rest of the region, where high-street retail vacancy dropped overall vacancy rate to just over 14%, down from about 15.8% last fall.

After Prominent Closures, D.C. Restaurants Operating With ‘A Sword Over Your Neck’

Certain areas of the city are recovering more swiftly. While downtown and other office-heavy districts remain soft, the 14th Street corridor continues to be an active place, said Dochter & Alexander Retail Advisors principal and co-founder Dave Dochter. But within those submarkets lie further particularities, Dochter said. “Is it a well-positioned corner with good ceiling heights and outdoor space and appropriate infrastructure? You’re in a good place,” Dochter said. “Are you mid-block with low ceiling heights? Then no.”

A new twist on Alexandria’s Carlyle Club coming to downtown D.C.

A rebooted version of what Alexandria’s Carlyle Club was meant to be is coming to downtown D.C. Owner Brennan Reilly has leased the 12,000-square-foot former Pennsylvania 6 restaurant at 1350 Eye St. NW, where he’s working on plans for a pair of concepts, event venue Carlyle Room and Brennan’s Bar. It’ll be a return to what Reilly hoped the Carlyle Club would become when it opened about 15 years ago. The venue will feature more live events and performances than the former one did in Alexandria’s Carlyle neighborhood.

Monumental Sports & Entertainment Bringing Esports Theater to DC’s Gallery Place

Washington D.C. is getting into the esports game. Gallery Place, a 660,000-square-foot power center in Downtown D.C., is adding District E Powered by Ticketmaster, a 14,000-square-foot live theater under the Monumental Sports & Entertainment banner.

Amazon Fresh opens first D.C.-area location. In this full-size grocery store, no cashier is needed.

Amazon Fresh is open for business in the D.C. region. The first of Amazon.com Inc.’s full-size branded grocery stores in Greater Washington opened its doors Thursday morning to a crowd of more than 300 who started showing up around 4:30 a.m. They were greeted by green-and-white balloons, security directing motorists in the parking lot, music playing from speakers outside the store, free swag, and lots of technology on display up and down the aisles of the Amazon Fresh in Franconia.

D.C. Area’s First Amazon Fresh Grocery Store Opens In Northern Virginia

Amazon has opened the first location of its grocery store concept in the D.C. area, with several more in the works. Customers lined up as early as 4 a.m. Thursday for the opening of the Amazon Fresh store in Franconia, Virginia, NBC Washington reported. The 30K SF store features a selection of grocery items and prepared foods, and it has technology that allows customers to scan a QR code in the Amazon app and add items to their Amazon Dash Cart, which tracks purchases and charges customers’ cards when they leave the store.

Exclusive: Online retailer signs 14th Street lease — a bright spot in D.C.’s challenged retail market

Online mattress retailer Saatva has struck a deal to open its first local bricks-and-mortar retail store along D.C.’s 14th Street corridor, part of a larger physical presence for the New York e-commerce company founded a decade ago. The company has signed a full-building lease at 1714 14th St. NW, a mixed-use development by Coba Properties between R and S streets NW that also includes residential and office space. Saatva was picked over a larger pool of retail and restaurateur prospects for a number of reasons, including its willingness to lease all of the building’s nearly 6,000 square feet, split across two levels, said Dave Dochter, a principal with Dochter & Alexander Retail Advisors, who was part of the team marketing the space to prospective tenants.

Q&A: Retail Adviser David Dochter Talks COVID Impact on Downtown DC

Washington, D.C.-based Dochter & Alexander Retail Advisors recently conducted a comprehensive overview of retail units in Downtown D.C. and along the high-street retail corridors, including Georgetown and 14th Street, examining the pandemic’s impact on the retail sector.  Its findings showed vacancy rates of 22.6 percent for Downtown D.C., 16.6 percent for Georgetown, and 11.0 percent for 14th Street. When compared to its pre-COVID winter of 2020 numbers, these numbers have just about doubled in all three markets.

Rent Payments Loom For Restaurants As Capacity Restrictions Lift

Many restaurants in D.C. and across the country have been paying little to no rent over the last 14 months as the pandemic has depressed their sales. Now, with the warm weather and vaccinations bringing more customers, and with cities like the District lifting their capacity restrictions, restaurants will soon have larger bills to pay. But the difficulty of hiring back staff and the uncertainty of whether people are comfortable enough to crowd into restaurants could make it difficult for restaurants to pay the rents their landlords will soon demand.

D.C’s Retail Market Heating Up With Over 120 New Tenants Searching For Space

The D.C.-area retail market has suffered from rising vacancy during the coronavirus pandemic, but a new report shows a surge in prospective tenants that could begin to fill that space. Eighty-six retail operators began seeking D.C.-area space in the first three months of the year, followed by another 45 tenants in April, a significant increase in activity from last year, Dochter & Alexander Retail Advisors‘ spring D.C. retail market report found….

Brooklyn-based ice cream shop opens first Houston location this weekend with 2 tastes Texans love

Houstonians won’t find “regular” ice cream at Van Leeuwen Ice Cream. When the Brooklyn-based producer opens its first Houston location in Rice Village this Saturday, May 8, they’ll find every pint is labeled “French ice cream.”..

The pandemic is freeing up more D.C. – area retail space. What, if anything, is looking to fill these notable vacancies?

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced many businesses across Greater Washington and the country to close up shop, leading to a fast-changing dynamic when it comes to retail space. Before the pandemic, there was a 6.9% vacancy rate among 22 million square feet of high street retail in the region, according to research from Dochter & Alexander Retail Advisors. That figure has jumped to 15.8%…

Dochter & Alexander hires former sweetgreen head of real estate, launches new advisory group

The man at least partially responsible for sweetgreen’s growth into a nationally recognized brand is now looking to do the same for other companies and he’s teaming up with a local retail heavyweight to do it.

WBJ Power 100 Class of 2019: Dochter & Alexander

Principals of Dochter & Alexander recognized in Washington Business Journal Power 100 List. David Dochter & Matthew Alexander sited for their work progressing retail real estate in the Washington DC region.

H Street Losing Retail Momentum To Union Market, But New Projects Could Bring It Back

The H Street corridor emerged this decade as one of D.C.’s hottest restaurant corridors, but its neighbor to the north appears to be pulling away some of that momentum. Union Market’s restaurant scene has exploded…