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| After: A home for budding entreprenuers and an exciting new addition to to the district |
It seems pop-up stores continue to gain momentum in neighborhood districts. Between a recent uptick in consumer spending and rumors of a potential loosing of the credit market [see today's WSJ, "Banks Get Back to People in Business"] , these might be the beginning of better times for neighborhood business districts. I recently stumbled across a program offered by the D.C. Office of Planning called the Temporary Urbanism Initiative that is taking advantage of these trends by aggregating multiple local retailers into temporary pop-up spaces. The City has awarded small grants to local commercial district management entities to fund these spaces. On H Street, the 'Temporium' as they call them, houses 17 local designers. In the Shaw district, the pop-up houses 40 designers and artists in a formerly vacant 10,000 sf space. Finding vendors can be a challenge, which is why partnering with local community and artist groups is critical to ensuring a good tenant mix. At the Mount Pleasant Temporium, they have even added events to help draw retail traffic into the 900 sf space that houses 34 vendors. This is a wonderful way for a local commercial district management entity to accomplish multiple goals: fill a vacancy, support local entreprenuerial efforts, and drive retail traffic to their district.
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| Before: a vacancy in search of a tenant |
For more informaiton, The Washington Post recently cited this initiative in an article: "Pop-up gains favor in D.C. with Garment District, Mount Pleasant Temporium", Washington Post, March 6, 2011
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