“It all revolves around the businesses,” says Randy de Leon about why Mount Pleasant Street is such a renowned neighborhood in the District.
Randy’s parents, Rodolfo and Alicia de Leon, opened Leon Shoe and Luggage Repair 28 years ago, and today, it is one of the longest running businesses on Mount Pleasant Street. Rodolfo became a cobbler as a young man in his home country of Guatemala and passed on the trade to Randy, who took over the family business after Rodolfo passed away in 1994.
Randy, who proudly says he was born and raised in Mount Pleasant, and his mother continue to run the business in its original state: a tiny, bright-blue store with a black and white picture of Rodolfo at work in the shop.
Watching Randy de Leon, a robust young man with an endearing fleece hat perched on his head, efficiently mend sleek shoes is reminiscent of another era; a feeling of nostalgia for the type of skills, convenience, and culture found at Mount Pleasant businesses is why local residents say it is such a remarkable place.
Leon Shoe and Luggage Repair is one of 83 independently owned businesses along the neighborhood commercial strip of Mount Pleasant Street, NW. Designated a historic district in 1986, Mount Pleasant is often referred to as a “village in the city” retaining a small town neighborhood feel despite being nestled between the bustling Adams Morgan and Columbia Heights neighborhoods.
Walking along Mount Pleasant Street, one finds a balance of both the quaint and urban; ground level retail shops, colorful storefronts, neighbors chatting in both English and Spanish, and a street full of character and contrasts. The businesses and their owners may provide part of the appeal in an era overrun by large conglomerates. Most are independently owned small businesses that include a hardware store, a copy and print shop, pupuserias and a communist-themed café.
Furthermore, many of the business owners are residents and active community members themselves. Local dentist Dr. Cameron, for example, emcees the annual Mount Pleasant Youth Arts Fair every spring. The community feel created by the locally owned businesses is a distinctive characteristic of Mount Pleasant. However, with a big-box retail development slated to open a few blocks away on 14th Street early next year, some business owners wonder what this will mean for the future of their businesses and the neighborhood.
DC USA: What will Columbia Heights Development Mean for Mount Pleasant?
Big changes are taking place just four blocks away from Leon Shoe and Luggage Repair. A massive construction project is underway on 14th Street in preparation for the big box retail complex known as “DC USA” set to open in March of 2008. According to Robert Moore, president and CEO of the Development Corporation of Columbia Heights, a community partner on the project, DC USA will be the largest neighborhood retail development in the country.
The $149.5 million, 500,000-square-foot retail complex with a 1,000-car parking facility will occupy a five-acre site at 14th and Irving streets, NW, in Columbia Heights and will feature mostly large chain stores, typical of what one finds at a suburban strip mall including a Target, Bed Bath and Beyond, Best Buy, Marshall’s, Washington Sports Center, Staples and Caribou Coffee.
And what will this mean for a small business district trying to co-exist with large-scale corporate retail development just a few short blocks away?
Moore says the impact will be positive. “It can only help, not hinder, the prosperity of the Mount Pleasant business district,” says Moore. “We believe many businesses will be enhanced, and that’s good for everybody.”
A Small Business District on Purpose
Dominic Sale is the president of Mount Pleasant Main Street and feels there is more to be considered regarding DC USA’s impact. “I think people just expect there is going to be this residual spillover effect, but without proper planning and proper attention, issues don’t get resolved,” says Sale.
The Mount Pleasant Main Streets program is part of the District-funded “Main Streets Initiative,” a city-wide program created in 2002 to aid and revitalize the city’s traditional neighborhood business districts with a goal of supporting retail investment through the retention and expansion of existing businesses. The Main Streets Program, as Sale describes, serves an important role as a steward for neighborhood business districts, but due to limited funding, the program relies largely on volunteers.
One of the draws of Mount Pleasant businesses, according to Sale, is the mix of people served by the businesses. Many cater to Latino residents, Sale notes, but that has been changing slowly over the last few years as the ethnic and economic makeup of the neighborhood itself changes. Newer businesses, such as restaurants like Tonic or Radius Pizza, have begun to open up on the strip, catering to more affluent residents of Mount Pleasant and surrounding areas. “We still manage to maintain a mix, and I don’t foresee it changing overnight,” says Sale.
“In my opinion, what makes Mount Pleasant Street special is its ethnic flavor, and the restaurants and shops are local, not chains,” says Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner and 33-year Mount Pleasant resident Jack McKay. “I think that’s what Mount Pleasant needs to preserve in order to survive with 14th Street so close by.
Something Unique in Mount Pleasant
Variety and quality of service is what will differentiate Mount Pleasant from DC USA, says Randy de Leon. “They won’t have the same experience, and it’s because you don’t have the owner’s hospitality,” he says.
Take for example the Mount Pleasant Pharmacy, which has been providing healthcare services to the neighborhood’s changing communities for 24 years. Owner Joanie Majeed, whose husband, Tony, is the head pharmacist, says though neighborhood residents are increasingly affluent, for many years residents were from underserved minority and immigrant communities, and the community pharmacy was, and still is, an important healthcare resource. “Tony always tells people many times to go to see their doctors, but people just want to go to him,” says Majeed.
Having been in the neighborhood for almost 25 years, the staff at Mount Pleasant Pharmacy have developed personal relationships with community members, rather than just a service-oriented one. “We know everybody,” says Majeed, “Tony often says we know the grandparents of the kids who are coming in.” Sidney Alvarado and manager Nelson Canales joined the team at the pharmacy shortly after it opened in 1983, when they were both 15 years old; over 20 years later, they are still serving the community through the pharmacy today.
About the impact of the DC USA project, Majeed says it will affect Mount Pleasant businesses in different ways, but much depends on if the residents are able to afford to stay in the neighborhood. “If neighborhood people stay here or come back, we’ll be ok,” says Majeed. “I don’t know what will happen if the majority of African-Americans and Latinos who have been so loyal to us over the years leave.”
Some business owners are concerned that big box stores have a buying power that is difficult to compete with as a small business. “No matter how good I advertise my business, Target and Marshall’s will be on the next corner when I have to sell at one or two dollars more,” says Caridad Pichardo, owner of Yoly’s Boutique, a clothing and party supply store named after her daughter.
“We’re really just not sure what’s going to happen, but we figure we need to be better organized so that we can try to articulate and identify what we need to help us so we don’t go under,” says Jean Lujan, president of the Mount Pleasant Business Association (MPBA), a coalition of business owners.
A Level Playing Field?
“I expected, probably wrongly so, that the city would have stepped in, in some way, to help support these businesses knowing that it’s going to have an enormous impact on our business community; however, it just hasn’t happened,” says Sale. While the city has offered subsidies and enticements to the big box retail stores, many of them based outside of Washington, DC, Sale says, “We’ve got all these little local businesses that have gotten practically zero support.”
Lujan suggests the city could work to address the lack of parking for patrons of businesses on Mount Pleasant Street. “I used to run Heller’s Bakery for 13 years, and it was so difficult because customers would come, and there’s no place to park,” says Lujan.
“When you can go to Giant and get a birthday cake when you are doing your regular shopping, it’s really hard to encourage people to come and patronize a small bakery when they can’t find parking, or when police are so vigilant in ticketing.”
Infrastructure improvements on Mount Pleasant Street are also a major concern, says Sale, describing the lack of effective street lights and crumbling sidewalks which can be critical issues for small businesses. “If they don’t have attractive infrastructures and an attractive environment for people to come into, people are going to choose to shop next door.”
With small, local independently-owned businesses now competing with large-scale national franchises down the street, the city could play a major role in helping level the playing field. “If somebody could put their heads together and come up with some tax incentives to encourage these sorts of small business strips,” suggests Lujan. “Our tax policy, particularly property tax policy, makes a big difference on what the neighborhood is going to look like.”
Until recently there had been city grant money for façade improvements made available to the Mount Pleasant business district, yet that money is no longer available, Lujan says. However, a couple hundred thousand dollars for improvements had been allocated for the 14th Street commercial corridor, north of DC USA. “I think our district will be impacted just as much [as Columbia Heights],” she says.
And what do experts say about the impact of larger big box stores on small business districts? “For businesses that are struggling already, having stronger competition sometimes makes them struggle more,” says Lauren Adkins, assistant director for field services at the National Trust Main Street Center, which has developed an approach to neighborhood commercial district revitalization used throughout the country.
The competition of larger businesses can also be an opportunity for small businesses to sharpen business practices, she says. “[I]f local businesses are very aggressive and immediately start researching their competition,” Adkins advises, then local businesses could determine what makes them unique from the new competition and emphasize that in their services.
The city can also help encourage customers shopping at DC USA to shop on Mount Pleasant Street, says Camille Nixon of DC Main Streets. One suggestion Nixon makes is that the city should make it easier to walk or drive between 14th and Mount Pleasant streets.
Nothing to Worry About?
Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham, when questioned by DC North about his plans to address the concerns of Mount Pleasant’s business owners regarding DC USA’s impact, responded that he was not familiar with any concerns, but he said he would be open to meeting with business owners. “I’d be very interested in hearing more about this,” said Councilmember Graham. “I don’t know what threat the Target poses, I’m not sure, for example, just what that would be. Targets are located across the United States.”
“I suspect there will be some economic impact, it may be good, it may be otherwise, but I would like to hear specifically what the concerns are,” said Councilmember Graham.
Robert Moore of the Development Corporation of Columbia Heights says there is no reason for concern. “I think that Mount Pleasant can only count on DC USA bringing them more business than they had before,” says Moore. He also adds that DC USA offers neighborhood residents 1,500 jobs and retail services that weren’t immediately available before.
While a meeting between MPBA and Ward 1 Councilmember Graham has been planned for the coming weeks, no formal measures have been taken to address the DC USA project’s impact on Mount Pleasant small businesses, according to Jean Lujan.