Georgetown Is Looking Good: BID Touts Canal Funds, New Restaurants; Issues Annual Report

It was a very good year, it seems, if you attended the Georgetown Business Improvement District’s annual meeting, held June 10 at Tony and Joe’s Seafood Place at Washington Harbour on the Georgetown waterfront.

Office and retail space is renting well, consumer spending remains strong and consistent, the C&O Canal, a jewel of Georgetown, will get funding from the District government for rehabilitation — and four restaurants received major honors. To boot, the BID issued its third annual State of Georgetown report and redesigned and upgraded its website.

Now a park, the historic canal which connects the town to its working waterfront past took center stage.  “The C&O Canal is a unique feature of our region and a living piece of America’s history,” said Joe Sternlieb, CEO of the Georgetown BID. “It’s a window into the story of our industrial past, and is also a place for exercise, recreation and reflection.”
 
As previously reported in The Georgetowner and other news outlets, D.C.’s 2016 Budget includes $3 million for restoration and education efforts for the Georgetown section of the C&O Canal National Historical Park.

The BID and other community leaders founded Georgetown Heritage, an independent 501(c)3 nonprofit organization “with the mission of promoting and presenting the history of Washington D.C.’s oldest neighborhood.” Georgetown Heritage made fixing the C&O Canal its first mission and now works with the National Park Service on repairs, safety efforts and buying a new canal barge.
 
“I am pleased to report today that my efforts to get the city to support the C&O Canal initiatives in the Georgetown 2028 agenda have been embraced by the Council,” Ward 2 D.C. Councilman Jack Evans said.  “We have approved $3 million to the C&O Canal efforts of the BID and Georgetown Heritage.  These funds will be used to fix Lock 4, build a new canal boat and support comprehensive planning efforts to improve lighting, the towpath, wayfinding and interpretation.”

Evans also said, “The city is on board” with not only the canal work and money but also lighting under Key Bridge and the Whitehurst Freeway. Pulling from his standard celebratory stump speech, the longest serving councilman recalled the first year of the 21st century, when Georgetown was known for its exploding manhole covers and its “Little Dig,” torn-up streets because of work on its infrastructure as well as major building going up around town, such as the Ritz-Carlton and the large southwest dormitory complex at Georgetown University. “In Georgetown, nothing is ever easy,” Evans smiled.

Besides the $3 million from the District government, Georgetown Heritage promises to raise $3 million from the private sector.

The goals of fixing the canal and getting a new canal boat is only part of the action agenda items that are contain in the BID’s Georgetown 2028 Plan, “an ambitious agenda of 75 action items aimed to improve Georgetown’s transportation infrastructure and management, public spaces and economy” and “created by the Georgetown BID and community stakeholders and officially launched in January 2014,” the BID says.

Along with awards and discussions, the meeting brought together some interesting aspects of Georgetown business and its people.

Andrew Blair, CEO of Colonial Parking, who said “To hell with U Street,” introduced Paul Cohen, who founded J. Paul’s, Paulo’s, Old Glory and other restaurants in Georgetown. Cohen was recognized by the BID for the his lifelong achievement in town. For his part, Cohen saluted the legacy of “the Laythams, the Millers, the Laniers and the Snyders.” He gently acknowledged of Georgetown: “We’re in a unique situation that not everyone knows.” Cohen’s newest restaurant is Boss Shepherd’s at 13th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.

Other awardees included Marcus Brown of the BID’s Clean Team and Georgetown Galleries, a consortium of art galleries in town.

The Park Service’s Kevin Brandt was saluted as “Community Leader of the Year.” Brandt noted that the bicentennial of the C&O Canal is 2028, the same year which ends the BID’s 15-year action plan program.

He said that his ideas for the canal jived with the BID’s and that he was “optimistic” about the canal’s future “despite federal cuts.”

The BID’s economic development director Josh Hermias noted that there is 48,000 square feet of retail space under construction or in the planning stage — considering the 3220 Prospect Street project and the old Georgetown Theater reconstruction.

Herb Heiserman of Streetsense, which helped design such spots as Bandolero and ShopHouse, talked about restaurants and retail shops and how people experience those spaces. Heiserman brought up the fact that “rents have exploded.” He lamented the intrusion of the clothing store, Francesca’s, on Bistro Francais, which owns only half of the space it used.

Restaurateur Ian Hilton sat down briefly to discuss his work and restaurants with Steinlieb. Hilton opened Chez Billy Sud in October 2014 at 1039 31st St. NW., and it quickly become a neighborhood favorite. It is
in the old Cafe LaRuche space — he said he tried to buy the property.

Of Georgetown, Hilton, who grew up in Capitol Hill and now lives in Arlington, said: “It’s almost not D.C. I’ve always thought of Georgetown as this little town that I’ve always loved. . . . I think people are rediscovering how special Georgetown is, and with more and more people biking in the city I had this vision of people biking in to be in the neighborhood and eating at our beautiful spot. We wanted to open in a pretty space, serve good food at a good price and serve the neighborhood.”

Hilton also quipped that “the celebrity chef climate” was “kind of the apocalypse.” He added his two cents to the conversation about Georgetown’s liquor license moratorium: building new restaurants “can’t be done in the current liquor license environment.”

As the crowd adjourned, Fred Moosally, director of the D.C. Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration, reminded business folk of the four liquor licenses now available for Georgetown with application beginning June 25. Moosally also noted that the town’s liquor license moratorium expires Feb. 3, 2016.

In its State of Georgetown report, the BID highlighted:

= Strong office sector performance for a third year in a row, with vacancy dropping to 7.1 percent—outperforming all other submarkets in the region.

= Retailer interest remains high, evidenced by a net gain of 19 new stores and services, a total collection of over 350 retailers, rising rents and property values, and a retail vacancy rate of 2.7 percent at year-end 2014.

= New LEED certifications for six office and retail spaces accounting for 671,000 square feet (12 percent of total rentable building area in Georgetown), signaling growing interest in renewing buildings.

= Turnover in the restaurant industry produced exciting, critically praised concepts like Fiola Mare, Chez Billy Sud, a revamped Grill Room helmed by Chef Frank Ruta, and Dog Tag Bakery.  Georgetown hotel occupancy rebounded, moving slightly above the five year average to 71.5 percent, and revenues increased to $72 million (up 12 percent from 2013).

Visit the BID’s revamped website to download a copy of the report, or click here.