First it was Borders Books, closing as part of its bankruptcy filing. Then Bruno Cipriani, the classy Italian menswear firm, announced its plans to close and move to a new location. Then Bloomingdale’s disclosed in January that White Flint was on its list of planned closures. But, more store have started leaving including most recently, Godiva Chocolate.
Which will be the next store to pull out of the White Flint Mall, scheduled to close in 2014 for a total ‘revamp’ and re-creation as a multi-use town center?
When walking through White Flint these days, there's an increasing number of vacant storefronts and seemingly a smaller number of customers.
Bruno Cipriani remains open, but will close its White Flint store within the next few months and move to a new location in Chevy Chase, retail sources told Patch.
Godiva Chocolate has closed along with Coach, Trade Secret, A Pea in a Pod, Spectacle, and the Washington Redskins Official Store.
In all fairness, many stores look likely to stay.
H&M, the trendy Swedish retailer, plans to open three new stores: in Chevy Chase (Friendship Heights), downtown Silver Spring and on King Street in Alexandria in October. But it plans to remain at White Flint, according to the store manager.
Pottery Barn consolidated at White Flint early this year after closing its store at the Chevy Chase Pavilion in Friendship Heights, so a quick exit there appears unlikely.
Asked to provide an exact number of vacancies at the mall, spokeswoman Karen Doyne, of Burson-Marsteller for Lerner Enterprises, responded with a general comment on the forthcoming transition process.
“The redevelopment of the mall requires an extended planning and approval process,” Doyne stated in an e-mail to Patch Thursday evening. “As such we don’t have a specific timetable for the transition.
“We will continue to manage and operate a first class, high fashion, regional shopping mall,” she added.
Plans for the future of White Flint have been presented in outline form. They appear intriguing, though they are difficult to envision given the current look and feel of the place.
The revamped site will cover 52 million square feet and include commercial buildings, a 300-room hotel and residential buildings. Urban planners suggest the area will look more like Bethesda 15 to 20 years from now.
The existing mall is on three levels and covers 800,000 square feet, so much of the new development will be in what now are the mall's parking lots.
What do you think? Will these grandiose plans work? Or is this pie-in-the sky? And which will be the next store to pull out of White Flint? And the last to turn out the lights?
In This article
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Bloomingdale's
11305 Rockville Pike, Kensington, MD -
Godiva Chocolatier
11301 Rockville Pike, Kensington, MD -
Coach
11301 Rockville Pike, Kensington, MD -
Trade Secret
11301 Rockville Pike, Kensington, MD
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A Pea In The Pod
11301 Rockville Pike, Kensington, MD -
Spectacle
11301 Rockville Pike, Kensington, MD -
Washington Redskins Official Store
11301 Rockville Pike, Kensington, MD -
Pottery Barn
11301 Rockville Pike, Kensington, MD -
andrea
2:17 am on Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Well, if you can't be part of the future guess you better just get out of the way! Hard to envision more development; mixed residential, business, retail/restaurants/hotel. Lerner Corp. will get more bang for their buck (real estate) in terms of building up.
I'm sure more revenue for MC (hands down there will be parking fees). Sort of sad because there's a lot of early walkers using the Mall but that doesn't generate revenue but then inclement weather doesn't facilitate outdoor shopping either. Whatever - sad about the stores pulling out but how can they sustain paying such heavy $ for leases when there are not a lot of anchor stores or pedestrian traffic? Guess everything has a 'shelf life' including large shopping malls that are 35 years old... Hopefully the last store will be Lord & Taylor along w/ the successful restaurants.
Ian Nigh
8:52 am on Tuesday, April 24, 2012
So happy to see this shift from large indoor shopping malls with vast parking lots to a more pedestrian friendly town center type retail. I think this will be great for the area, and we will see a lot of the surrounding neighborhoods increase their value and quality of life.
Mike
9:43 am on Tuesday, April 24, 2012
@Ian..... the indoor shopping mall is about as appealing as a worn down strip mall to todays market. The local market would much rather have Rockville town square type development then a obsolete shopping mall
Lucy
1:10 am on Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Well i work in white flint as of now.. & i like stores like bertuccis, gymboree, cheesecake factory, & williams & sanoma.. So if you guyss do remodel, please keep those stores... better yet expand them. give them a bigger & better place to work thanks
C. Murphy
1:23 pm on Sunday, March 3, 2013
It seems many have been brainwashed by this idea of shopping, living, working, walking environments that have been pushed upon us by the powers that be. I for one do not like Rockville Town Center, it feels cold and uninviting to me nor Rio which resembles a hodgepodge of nonsense, nor the new development across the street from White Flint which is a mess, nor Bethesda Row which is worthless, are there enough of these sites. Who wants to constantly park underground in the suburbs or Is it the suburbs any more, it's the city's extension. Which means expensive. Doesn't anybody get it, I for one don't want to live, work and walk the way I am being eventually forced to do, let's face it we love our fast mobility. With one little tiny city environment after another all the way down Rockville Pike to Wisconsin Avenue to the Potomac, enough is enough.
macadoodle
6:49 am on Monday, April 29, 2013
Agree with C. Murphy above and believe it's a pie-in-the-sky experiment, the pipe dream of a County Council member who was defeated in her bid for re-election & envisioned White Flint as a scaled-down NYC from whence she hailed. Mont County is 10-15 years behind VA's expansion of dwellings & retail businesses along the Metro Line: Ballston, Clarendon, Tyson's Corner. Nothing happened development-wise except in Bethesda. Wheaton is a wasteland. Glenmont, Forest Glen, Takoma are virtually undeveloped in comparison to what VA did when the Metro arrived so starting now seems to be way behind the curve. As many others, am concerned about forcing people to live in man-made, hodge-podge clusters of little towns with no small-town feel or character which seem to be deserted, except for bars, when the sun goes down. Agree that Rockville Town Center is cold and uninviting with real parking problems if you do venture there. Don't know the solution. Brave or batty New World.