Clarendon's Continuing Revival

CVS spokesman Michael DeAngelis said the company will start building on the site soon because it plans to open the store in mid- to late 2008, he said. CVS has 13 outlets in Arlington.

DeAngelis said the new store will not replace the CVS at 10th Street and Washington Boulevard. Although a development is planned for that site, he said the company still will rent there. There is also a CVS down the street at the Courthouse Metro.

"The overall D.C. market and Arlington has been very successful for us," DeAngelis said. "We're always looking for opportunities to open additional stores."

Arlington County officials expressed a reserved optimism about the new CVS.

"It's not our first choice, but it provides a needed service to many of the people who live and work in the area," said County Board Chairman Paul Ferguson (D). Ferguson said that Arlington officials would prefer neighborhood retail rather than a national chain but that it was "important to have the right mix between local businesses and national chains to provide choices for people."

"Personally, I'd like the Cafe Dalat back because I enjoyed many lunches there," Ferguson said.

Peter Pflug, co-owner of the Clarendon Ballroom, the Tallula restaurant and the Clarendon Grill, plans to open with partners a fine-dining restaurant featuring "new American" cuisine on the intersection opposite the new CVS. The ground floor will feature a bar, he said, with space for dining on the second floor and on the roof-top terrace.

"I've been interested in that building for the last seven years," Pflug said. "I finally talked them into renting to me."

Pflug said he and his partners "might beat the CVS" and open sooner than the pharmacy. He declined to disclose the name of the planned restaurant.

Pflug said that drugstores bring a lot of people to a street but that his main concern was whether restaurant patrons would have the typical CVS sign -- big and fluorescent -- for a view. "A big glow coming off the building would bother me a bit," he said.

Bob Brosnan, director of planning for the county, said officials are striving for amenities close to the Orange Line Metro stations so that residents can "meet all their daily needs without getting in their cars." A CVS is "part of that," he said. The drugstore will not have parking, adhering to the model for other urban CVS stores.

Brosnan said CVS will restore the 1929 Rees Building on the corner, just as Pflug and his partners will do for the historic building opposite. He said the intention was to preserve the scale of the low-rise buildings and the setbacks.

Behrooz Sarvghadi, co-owner of the Kabob Bazaar, the popular eatery near the planned CVS, said he would have preferred another restaurant rather than a chain drugstore. But he said he is glad the storefronts will no longer be vacant and predicts that CVS will bring more traffic.

"Restaurants aren't the only thing we're looking for," Brosnan said. "We have a lot of restaurants in Clarendon already. We're trying to create a well-rounded village within each Metro station area."

He said that a locally owned drugstore would have been nice, but that "there aren't very many of those left around."

Brosnan said mom-and-pop stores in the neighborhood are under pressure because of rising rents amid development.

Clarendon is a mix of quirky locally owned shops and premium national retailers such as Crate and Barrel and the Container Store, which were drawn to the Market Common development, which opened five years ago. Rising commercial rents have meant more upmarket retailers and fewer small businesses, however.

"We don't have any tricks up our sleeve to keep rents down for retailers," Brosnan said, "nor is there any money out there for that. There's a bit of federal and state money for affordable housing, but there's nothing out there to allow affordable retail."

Next door to the planned CVS is the Public Shoe Store, which has been selling shoes "for hurting feet" at that location since 1938.

Podiatrist and owner Dr. Sonny Friedman, 73, said he took over the store many years ago from his father, who had run it for 35 years. He said none of his children is interested in running it, so the store will close when his health no longer allows him to work.

Friedman owns the building, so he doesn't have to worry about rising rents.

"Retail is hard around here now," said Friedman, who describes the best time for the area as the late 1930s, when his father bought the building -- long before malls and outlets were built at Tysons Corner, Baileys Crossroads and elsewhere in Northern Virginia.

"People come here to enjoy the food and the entertainment," Friedman said. "But they do their shopping at the malls or online."