If the Georgetown district of Washington (DC) doesn’t want an Apple store with bad design, there are other areas of the city who will gladly accept the new business, according to local news accounts. The Old Georgetown Board rejected the company’s latest architectural proposal last week, 15 months after Apple purchased the building at 1229 Wisconsin Avenue. The board’s vote has prompted the intervention of mayor Adrian Fenty’s office to expedite an agreement, and it has now become a symbol of the anti-business sentiment in Georgetown, prompting invitations from other areas of the city. Councilman Jim Graham, representing the area of 14th Street north of downtown, told dcExaminer.com, “We want them.”
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I used to layover in Washington, DC as an airline pilot. On a nice evening, crewmembers would walk down to Georgetown for some exercise, check the shops, and maybe have dinner. But, it was going downhill then (the mid 90s) with sidewalk stands selling HongKong knockoffs of watches, handbags, and silk scarves. Kinda tacky! I can’t imagine how it must be now. There were plenty of parts of Washington where you didn’t go out on the street at night!
I worked at Tysons Corner Apple Store as a Mac Genius for a stretch, and then left the stores to open a freelance Technical Consulting business in Washington, DC in 2007. I have walked from Georgetown to 14th St in Columbia Heights District on some of the more temperate summer nights; this place is my home, and if there were an Apple Store in either of those districts, I would definitely put in a job application.
Right now, if I want to see a Mac Genius about my own Apple Care covered MBP, I have to metro out to Bethesda or Pentagon City (that store has horrible customer service, bad management, don’t ever go there) and for me, that’s ok. But not for my video producer friends, who have marvelled at the concept of dragging a Mac Pro along the Red line or the Blue line to get to those locations.
If would be documentary worthy.
Georgetown and Columbia Heights are two very different marketplaces right now. There are the highest quality businesses, restaurants and retail outlets in Georgetown that are never going to shut their doors; go to MieNYu restaurant, try their $20 prix fixe sunday brunch and you’ll quickly agree that my point is well made (For example).
Columbia Heights is bubbling with an ethnically and economically diverse set of business ventures, the previously empty corridor of Irving/14th Ste, now an outdoor mall with theatres, restaurants and now chain retail such as target, best buy, Marshalls that mirror the suburban business venture more commonly found due south of the River in the NoVa suburbs.
If an Apple Store showed up in Columbia Heights, the place would be graced by pedestrations representing the highest quality hip-hop and punk fashion you can still find on the less gentrified streets of DC.
If the Apple Store showed up in Georgetown, it would help anchor the smaller retail stores on Wisconsin, such as Commander Salamander, that find themselves surrounded by a ko of “Closing Down” “50% off of EVERYTHING sale” signs recently plastered across many of the windows.
It’s no doubt that portions of Georgetown would be revived by an Apple Store moving in, and it’s up to the Georgetown Board to decide whether a retail revival on Wisconsin may be worth the risk of stepping outside of the box of their decades old architectural design requirements.
I would like to see a revival in Georgetown, but then again, I’m happy to avoid the area entirely, save for every once in a while climbing the old exorcist steps and glimpsing the best view in the city. Or reserving the bird cage for the best dinner in the city.
Beyond that, I don’t need Georgetown just as much as Georgetown doesn’t need an Apple Store.
Wait, Georgetown NEEDS an Apple Store.
But if they really make Apple scramble to fit in, I’d be happy to lead Apple for a happy midnite tour along Pennsylvania Ave and up to the Columbia Heights District; a community and commercial district that’s ready to embrace a new Apple Store.