Hasta la Vista HoCo Harley

In May of 2004, Harley Davidson of Maryland celebrated the grand opening of their new location in the Troy Hill Commerce Center in Elkridge. According to this story by Liz F. Kay in The Sun the festivities included “a parade of motorcycles, fire engines and public officials in SUVs celebrated the dealership's reopening - a symbol of the transformation that county officials hope will continue along U.S. 1”

“With County Executive James N. Robey adorned in an orange and black leather jacket for his remarks - and Steppenwolf's "Born To Be Wild" blasting from stereo speakers - the store opened to great fanfare in the Troy Hill Commerce Center, just north of Route 100.”

Those wild days are now over.  This week I received a mailer from my buddy Rob Freedman informing me that the property is for sale. According to this story by Frank Hazzard in Elkridge Patch the motorcycle dealership, “will close permanently on Feb. 28.”

“The business is closing, in part, due to the down economy,” said Tina Ice, 66, who has owned the Elkridge dealership for 20 years.”

Meanwhile, across town in Annapolis Junction, Bob Henig a BMW motorcycle dealer holds his own. Bob told Frank he’d been prudent.

“We had plans in January of ’09 to double the size of  [Bob's BMW] and triple the parking, but we put that on hold when we saw what was coming in terms of the economy. Good decision."

I was never much attracted to motorcycles. They just didn’t look like that much fun to me, which is probably a good thing.

Hobby Lobby and Big Lots

As we continue to work on store locations for Bob’s Discount Furniture we continually learn about other big box retailers coming to Columbia. Today we learned that Hobby Lobby has leased the former Filenes Basement store in Snowden Square in Columbia. The arts and crafts retailer based out of Oklahoma City, has grown from a 300 square foot store in 1972 to 450 stores in 38 states. The former Filenes Basement store is 46,000 square feet.

Over the Columbia Crossing, the long vacant Comp USA store will soon be vacant no longer. Big Lots, “nation's largest broadline closeout retailer” has signed a lease for the 28,000 square foot store next to Joann Fabrics. Big Lots is a big operation with 1,400 stores in 47 states and over $4 billion in annual revenue. Their stores carry a wide variety of stuff.

Coupled with the recent announcements of store opening by Babies R Us and REI the long dry spell in retail, where there were more closings than openings, appears to have finally ended

HoCo Blog Hob Nob

JessieX and Frank Hecker are hosting a blogtail party at the Pure Wine Café in Ellicott City tomorrow from 6:15 PM to 7:45 PM. It’s a chance for local HoCo bloggers, readers and perhaps an anonymous commenter to meet up. All are equally welcomed.

That could be dangerous.

And the best news is that you won’t have to worry about running into this old dog. I’m spending most of my Wednesday doing the full circle shopping center tour of the Washington beltway with the boys from Bob’s. I don’t expect to be home for dinner.

Next time.

Bob’s Got a Good Point

As Maryland’s Transportation Secretary under former gov Bob Ehrlich, Bob Flanagan was a proponent of mixed used development at rail stations. As a candidate for county council he has come out against one of two major rail station development proposals in HoCo.

Bob’s got a good point here. According to this story by Larry Carson in The Sun, his opposition to Preston Partners attempt to rezone the former Coca-Cola site in Hanover from its heavy industrial zoning to Transit Oriented Development (TOD) is based on the "very real need for industrial and manufacturing property," in HoCo.

Industrial developers have actually coveted this site for years. When Coca-Cola ultimately decided to divest of this land they solicited offers from the development community. Most of the offers they received back were based on an assumption of some combination of warehouse, flex and single story office product permitted under existing M-2 zoning. Preston outbid their competitors by betting that they could secure a zoning change to TOD that would allow for a mix of high density residential, retail, and office instead.

In order for a property to be considered for TOD zoning it must be “within 3,500 feet of a MARC Station.” That’s just over a half mile. If you go by road distance, the Coca-Cola parcel is a little over a mile away which would seem to put it beyond the reach of qualifying for TOD.

Not so fast, Preston declared. They have pointed to a road easement granted to the parcel dating back to 1749 that runs along the railroad tracks. This easement put the edge of property within that half mile limit.

Denial of TOD zoning to Preston won’t necessarily preclude a TOD development at the Dorsey MARC station either. Though significantly smaller in scale, the large surface parking lot adjacent to the station has the potential to be redeveloped with structured parking and a mix of residential and retail uses.

Big Box Land Rush

Over the past few weeks I’ve been spending a great deal of time focusing on the retail environment just outside the Washington beltway in both Virginia and Maryland. We are tasked with finding strong retail sites for Bob’s Discount Furniture, a New England based home furniture chain that is expanding into the Baltimore and Washington, D.C. market. Our prime candidates are empty big box stores (30,000 square feet plus).

As I previously posted, we have limited choices and some real competition. Hhgregg has already leased virtually every vacant Circuit City store in Northern Virginia. They recently leased the former Circuit City store at Arundel Mills and I expect they’ll soon pop up in Columbia too. They’ve had a few months jump on us.

There are other new furniture chains out there as well. Room and Board, a Minneapolis based chain recently leased distribution space in the Troy Hill Commerce Center to support new stores in the region. Their first store will be at 14th and T Street in downtown DC.

The hottest retail development around the Beltway is Woodmore Town Centre at Glenarden. The 245 acre mixed use development with almost 800,000 square feet of retail including Wegmans, Costco, Best Buy, and JC Penney. There are no other big box spaces available.

In Columbia, a portion of the former Expo Design Center at Columbia Crossing II has been leased to Baby’s R Us, and there are a couple of large tenants circling the former Comp USA space in Columbia Crossing across the street.

That retail corridor along 175 between Snowden River Parkway and Dobbin Road still has my vote for one of the most ill designed shopping areas in the region.

The Book of Bobs: Chapter 1

We received a nice assignment in our office the other day. Boylston Realty Advisors hired us to help them find locations for Bob’s Discount Furniture in the Washington DC metropolitan area. Boylston is the exclusive representative of the New England based furniture chain.

Never heard of them?

In 2008 Bob’s was named furniture retailer of the year by Furniture Today magazine.

When we began talking about this assignment back in the fall there appeared to be plenty of choices when it came to prime locations. Expo Design Center, Circuit City, Linens and Things, Comp USA, to name a few, have all vacated big box stores in good locations over the past two years. There would seem to ample inventory.

Looks can sometimes be deceiving in commercial real estate. Just because a building appears to be vacant doesn’t always mean that no one is paying the rent. Home Depot, for example, continues to foot the bill for many of it’s now shuttered Expo Design Centers, including the one in Columbia, with years remaining on leases. Sometimes a retailer will hold on to a good location while it contemplates other potential uses for the real estate.

On the other hand, if the retailer went bankrupt like Circuit City, it’s a horse of another color. There are choices in prime locations but the retail landscape in the Washington, DC metropolitan area is anything but bleak. Since the beginning of the year there has been a marked increase in retail activity. One active party has been hhgregg, a Best Buy competitor. They recently leased a 350,000 square foot warehouse in Prince Georges County to service new the stores they are scouting out in the area.

Bob’s leased a 679,000 square foot warehouse in Hartford County last month. The Hartco politicos will be making a big announcement about that tonight in Annapolis.

These are all good signs of a rebounding local economy.

As much as the client will allow, I’ll write an occasional post about the assignment. Since it’s an assignment that will take us all over the region it will provide an opportunity to gauge the state of growth and development all over the Baltimore and Washington, DC area.

I’ll title it the Book of Bobs.