"In Chevy Chase, if there's a vacancy, they have to fill it right away," Pearlstein said. "They want to fill it with someone who can pay the rent. The fact that there are empty places [in Lanier's retail space] shows there is some semblance of thought of who's going to come in here."
Pearlstein said Lanier understands having a mix of retailers. "People won't come if they have just Banana Republic and Gap," she said.
This luxury furniture store Baker in Cady's Alley exemplifies the type of stores that are interested in Georgetown.
(Bill O'leary -- The Washington Post)
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Metro Business: Coverage of Washington area businesses and the local economy.
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The demand from tenants is pushing asking rents for space to unprecedented levels. A square foot averages $60 to $100 -- almost twice as much, brokers said, as the rates at the new Gallery Place complex on 7th Street NW.
"There's a new wave of tenants," said William G. Miller, director of retail leasing at Transwestern Commercial Services. "We've seen a constant churn of space, where when one leaves there's more activity [of tenants looking to fill that space] than there is space."
He and other developers point to such stores as Pottery Barn at the corner of M Street and Wisconsin Avenue NW, the neighborhood's other main street, which was once a small, grocery store; and such stores as Polo, Anthropologie and Lacoste as typical of the new tenants.
"This is not Rodeo Drive," Levy said. "This is not Madison Avenue. Georgetown is more like an amalgam between Soho and Greenwich Village."
There are 250,000 square feet of retail space to be leased or being built in Georgetown, Lanier said. The area runs from the Four Seasons hotel at M Street and Pennsylvania Avenue down to the Key Bridge; north to R Street and south to the Potomac River. Of that space, about 70,000 square feet belongs to Lanier's East Banc.
Probably the next part of Georgetown due for a shake-up as property values rise, developers said, is around Wisconsin Avenue and P Street, just up from busy M Street. The area is now dominated by family-owned shoe and tailored-suit stores.
Even with the increased interest from retailers, there is caution because of the impending empty space under construction and vacant, and worries about the economy.
"I've been prognosticating a downturn since before 9/11," Miller said. "I'm surprised at how resilient it's been."
Dana Hedgpeth writes about commercial real estate and economic development. Her e-mail address is hedgpethd@washpost.com.
