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Life Around Dupont Circle Takes a New Turn
Some local merchants concede that the chain stores have increased foot traffic.
(By Ricky Carioti -- The Washington Post)
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His store, the Third Day, has always been an unlikely venture -- an "anachronism," by Herbert's own description. It was founded 35 years ago by a seven-person collective, named for the day in Genesis on which God made plants. The Third Day continued selling potting soil and seeds and ornamental peppers long after $5 cafe lattes appeared in Dupont Circle.
As rents jumped in recent years and stores such as Rock Creek, a clothing boutique, and Naturally Yours, a health food store, started folding around him, Herbert knew his time was near.
The Third Day and neighboring District Hardware, which includes a bicycle-repair shop, occupy space along P Street carved from the basement of the historic James G. Blaine mansion. The leases end in November. A lawyer, John Phillips, bought the property in April. He plans renovations and said he had no choice but to bring rents up to the market price of more than $60 per square foot, more than double current rates.
Phillips said he tried to keep the hardware store -- but Conway said Phillips offered a smaller, underground space. Conway balked, noting that "location is critical." So he's planning to move.
"I went the extra mile," Phillips said, but couldn't come to terms with the shops. "I felt sorry for them because they'd been there for so long."
Herbert said he didn't put up a fight, knowing that his modest plant store couldn't cover the rents now common in the neighborhood.
"We tried to run a good show, and it was a good run, but times change," said Herbert, 59, who plans to move with his partner to Vermont, where the number of Starbucks shops in the entire state -- four -- equals the number in Dupont Circle.
Where local shops like Herbert's once ruled, chain stores and restaurants are now the busy spots in the neighborhood.
Since 1991, the number of national chain stores along Connecticut Avenue, Dupont's main commercial strip, has surged. A count by The Washington Post, using old directories and other references, showed 61 independent stores and three national chains in 1991 along the three blocks of Connecticut north of Dupont Circle. Today there are 39 independents and 18 national chains.
The shift has been gradual, but chains now span the entire length of the corridor, from the Krispy Kreme doughnut shop at the south end of the circle to the Buca di Beppo restaurant at the top of the hill near Florida Avenue. The four Starbucks stores are clustered within three blocks of the circle, and Comfort One Shoes, a local chain, has three stores in the 1600 block of Connecticut.
Sue Landini, owner of the Axis hair salon on Connecticut Avenue, traces what she called "the beginning of the end of an era" to the early 1990s, when the first Starbucks came to the circle.
"We didn't know that once Starbucks came, that was it," she said. "We were naive. We were like the dumb natives."
