D.C. officials are hoping that the massive Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s planned redevelopment in Northwest will finally give them the bait they need to lure the District’s first Wegmans grocery store. The highly sought-after grocer has two scheduled meetings this week with Mayor Vincent Gray and council members at a retail development conference in Las Vegas that historically has been the breeding ground for major real estate deals in the District.
Keith Sellars, senior vice president of development and retail for the Washington DC Economic Partnership, said city officials have been courting Wegmans “for years” but never had a site large enough.
“Now we have a site we believe will accommodate them at Walter Reed,” he said. “This is the most real opportunity for them to enter the market.”
The city announced in March that it will have 61 acres of the property included the campus’ entire Georgia Avenue frontage, once the army hospital moves out, doubling its initial share of the prime retail corridor.
Wegmans’ senior vice president is scheduled to meet with the mayor while Councilmen Harry Thomas Jr., Vincent Orange and Michael Brown are meeting separately with the retailer. Analyst David Livingston of DJL Research said scheduling two meetings is significant, noting the grocer typically spends years researching a location before it commits.
The grocer opened a location in Lanham in Prince George’s County in the fall and has five stores in Northern Virginia. Six more are planned for the suburbs, including one in Germantown.
Thomas, chairman of the council’s Economic Development Committee, said, “Wegmans is absolutely a real prospect.”
But the Wegmans meetings, scheduled at the end of the three-day International Council of Shopping Centers’ annual meeting, are just part of a 72-hour hustle in which city officials, private developers and retailers wine and dine each other to score deals.
Retailers such as Target, JoS. A. Bank, the Container Store, Home Depot and Best Buy have opened locations in the city as a result of talks at the conference, said Michael Stevens, executive director of the Capitol Riverfront Business Improvement District. Anthony Williams was the first D.C. mayor to attend the conference as he sought to build the underserved city’s retail.
Stevens and city officials are meeting with AMC Theatres to discuss potential locations, including one on First Street, south of M Street and adjacent to Nationals Park.
Officials also plan to meet with Under Armour, Target, Home Depot, Bloomingdales, Wal-Mart, Lowe’s and Michaels for sites like the Shops at Georgetown Park, NoMa, Capitol Riverfront and the O Street Market.
