DowntownDC Poised to Take Retail to A Whole New Level

The 10-acre CityCenterDC mixed-use development, now under construction at the Old Convention Center site, will create new retail for Downtown and D.C. CityCenterDC will anchor much of the $600 million in unmet shoppers’ goods retail demand, according to the 2011 edition of the DowntownDC Business Improvement District (BID) retail report released this month.

The report, “DowntownDC Shopping District 2011,” shows the DowntownDC BID area is poised to become a new regional shopping destination once Phase I of the CityCenterDC project is completed in 2013, adding 185,000 square feet of retail space. Another 140,000 square feet of retail space will follow in the project’s second and third phases, which could be completed in 2014 and 2015.

“This is a dramatic transformation,” said Richard H. Bradley, the DowntownDC BID executive director. “The DowntownDC BID area now has 600,000 square feet of shoppers’ goods retail. The shopping district could grow to more than one million square feet by 2015 because of CityCenterDC, 60,000 square feet of large retail space now available, and converting up to 100,000 square feet of non-shoppers’ goods retail or ground floor service uses to destination shoppers’ goods retail.”

The DowntownDC Shopping District stretches for more than 15 blocks, with the following boundaries: New York Avenue and Massachusetts Avenue on the north, 7th Street on the east, F Street on the south, and 13th Street on the west.