Hungry for Whole Foods

(By Bill O'leary -- The Washington Post)

Across the street, the Tivoli Theater has been restored, a Cuban restaurant with an art gallery has opened, and drywall is stacked in an adjoining storefront for a new coffee shop. Nearby, an apartment building with a vegan bakery is poised to open, a dry cleaner is coming, and a luxury condominium complex is being built.

When walking past all the construction, "My husband always turns to me and says 'That's our equity,' " Cooper said.

Drew Greenwald, president of Grid Properties, said Whole Foods has twice signed letters of intent. But negotiations stalled over the store's request for dedicated parking spaces, he said. The 1,000-space garage is being constructed with tax-exempt bonds, and spots cannot be set aside for specific retailers, Greenwald said.

The uncertainty did not stop an agent with Help-U-Sell Homes Matter Realty from recently advertising a four-bedroom townhouse on Euclid Street as being near "future retail incl Target, Whole Foods."

Robin Kang, 29, a computer specialist who bought a Victorian on Newton Place less than a year ago, began the e-mail campaign using a Web site he created.

His role models are the Logan Circle residents who enticed Whole Foods with a 52-page demographic study that demonstrated the affluence of homeowners within half a mile. They also flooded Whole Foods' headquarters with 3,000 pre-printed postcards.

Crista and John Gibbons frequented the P Street store while renting an apartment in Dupont Circle. Three months ago, they bought a house in Columbia Heights.

Crista Gibbons, 29, who works for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, wrote to Whole Foods -- and to Starbucks. And she tried to persuade her Dupont nail salon to open a branch in Columbia Heights. "I'm just thinking of all the things I miss from my old neighborhood," she said.

Gibbons, Kang and Cooper are typical of the newcomers who have flocked to Columbia Heights: young professionals who want a centrally located neighborhood on a Metro line but who can't afford to buy in Dupont Circle, Logan Circle or U Street.

Between 2004 and 2005, the median price of homes in Columbia Heights and neighboring Mount Pleasant increased by 29 percent, according to the Urban Institute. The median price in 2000 was $173,000; in 2005, $450,000.

"I've been a resident of the neighborhood since 2001 and have seen it improve greatly since I moved there," one homeowner wrote in an e-mail to Whole Foods. "The quality of the residents, as well as the quality of the restaurants and stores in the area are likewise on a steep upward trajectory."

Columbia Heights had been depressed since the 1968 riots. Once a thriving shopping district, 14th Street NW between Irving Street and Park Road grew desolate. Middle-class residents fled, elegant rowhouses were boarded up, and apartment buildings deteriorated. A Metro station opened in 2000, beginning a revival that has been gaining speed.