The retail exodus from what used to be called "Montgomery County's Rodeo Drive" continues, as the County has now plummeted out of the Forbes Richest Counties Top Ten List into irrelevance. Chico's is the latest victim of
wealthy residents fleeing the County, having now closed its doors at 5418 Wisconsin Avenue.
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The Chico's building architecture was
designed to fit in with the
grand department stores like
Woodward & Lothrop (now demolished)
that once surrounded it |
The exodus of wealthy residents to nearby jurisdictions like Frederick, Howard, Loudoun and Fairfax, combined with the
moribund County economy, has reduced tax revenues even as Montgomery has raised taxes to a record high. That's made the County Council's structural deficit even harder to overcome in the years ahead.
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Chico's in more--gilded
times in Montgomery County |
Charitable giving has taken a hit at the same time. Fewer MoCo residents can afford to donate, and the few tycoons who remain apparently aren't as generous as those who've relocated to the other side of the river. In 30 days, "wealthy" Montgomery County residents could only come up with $600,000 for the 125 survivors of the Flower Branch apartments explosion who lost everything (a whopping $4800 per homeless victim - "Tell them what they've won, Rod Roddy!" "A shopping spree at Goodwill!!!!!")
Still on the Forbes Top Ten: Arlington County at #8, Howard County at #4, Fairfax County at #3, the independent City of Falls Church at #2 and...drum roll, please...Loudoun County at #1. And, with the steep decline in Montgomery County Public Schools since 2010, all of those jurisdictions' school systems are now at least as good as ours, if not better.
Wow, we are in real trouble, folks.
Another descent into Fractal Wrongness. Chico's is struggling nationwide, along with most retail chains.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.chainstoreage.com/finance-0/rough-quarter-chicos/
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ReplyDelete"The Chico's building architecture was designed to fit in with the grand department stores like Woodward & Lothrop (now demolished) that once surrounded it"
Nice little innuendo, Dyer. But Woodie's entire chain failed in 1995. Hecht's moved into that store until their parent company's merger with Macy's in 2006, after which the building was demolished. Bloomingdales's is there now, along with Whole Foods and Microsoft offices.
Take your bernie snowflake self elsewhere.
Delete7:43 - Correct. Chico's is closing 50 stores nationwide this year.
ReplyDeleteDyer has got to be one of the most miserable little shits on this planet. He posts crap like this because otherwise his blog posts get three comments. Any attention is good attention for Robert "I was never loved as a child" Dyer.
ReplyDeleteNot fair - he has to be loved. What 50 year old would still live with his mommy if he wasn’t loved?
DeleteWhy are you reading his blog you triggered troll. Most businesses are shutting down in moco due to the people you support but in sure your unemployed and looking for free handouts.
DeleteChico's is moribund. This blog is moribund. MoCo? MoCo has an unemployment rate of 2.8% and a median household income over $100K. Nice try, Robert.
ReplyDelete9:02: For the 1000th time, Saul Alinsky, unemployment rate tells you NOTHING about the job market or vitality of economic development in Montgomery County. It only tells you that these people are gainfully employed in Northern Virginia and D.C., where all the job growth has been. In contrast, Montgomery County has suffered a net *loss* of jobs since 2005.
DeleteThe very rich who are fleeing make much more than 100K, old sport. You sound like Dr. Evil announcing his ransom demand.
How come Dyer never wrings his hands about "retail flight from MoCo" in his articles about the constant retail turnover at Bethesda Row (such as his article on Lululemon this morning), Montgomery Mall, or Pike & Rose?
ReplyDelete9:07: None of those other properties have cratered like "Rodeo Drive" in Chevy Chase, which was specifically geared toward old money and the ultra-rich.
Delete"Charitable giving has taken a hit at the same time. Fewer MoCo residents can afford to donate, and the few tycoons who remain apparently aren't as generous as those who've relocated to the other side of the river. In 30 days, "wealthy" Montgomery County residents could only come up with $600,000 for the 125 survivors of the Flower Branch apartments explosion who lost everything (a whopping $4800 per homeless victim..."
ReplyDeleteUm, how big a contribution would have been "sufficiently generous", in your opinion? How much did you contribute yourself? Did you actually contribute anything?
And WTF does this have to do with a moribund chain store closing in Chevy Chase?
Dyer closed comments on his back Friday entry but he forgot that people can still call the store and let them know that quite a few people on this blog probably take exception to Robert calling people hobos and morons. Can’t imagine that’s good for business.
ReplyDelete11:09: It would be good for a defamation lawsuit against you, as well. There'll be a record of your call with your phone service provider, exposing your identity, and speeding you toward your inevitable 2-year minimum sentence in federal prison for cyberstalking, defamation, harassment, and threats.
DeleteIs Chico's really in the same league as Gucci or Tiffany's? Do "tycoons" shop there?
ReplyDeleteSo is overall charitable giving down in Moco? It's unclear if he's stating that, or that people from the apartment explosion didn't receive enough donations (wouldn't this be covered by renter's insurance anyway?).
ReplyDeleteI grew up in Bethesda. A wonderful safe town. Frankly, I live in NYC and am now terrified of going to visit my elderly parents. They have been home invaded along with 2 neighbors. At 7 pm Saturday night our other neighbors heard loud pupounding on their doors. This was after a dangerous group of mont co community service guys spent day leaf blowing their streets.
ReplyDeleteMy neighbors are in marines and if they had broken door they would have blown the mongrels to Kingdom com.
However my point is....Bethesda is increasingly a dangerous place to live.
Liberalism has destroyed Montgomery County.
ReplyDeleteEveryone lives behind security systems bc of th3 ghetto gangsters living in Mont villag3 who rape and pillag3 through Bethesda Chevy Chase and MS13 gangs ripping hearts out of Wheaton residents
Lol more made up "facts" Census Bureau says that there are more millionaires in Montgomery County than at any point in history, but Dyer says they're "fleeing"
ReplyDeleteMost of the wealthiest residents in the entire Washington area-the Lerner's, saul, Rales, Leonsis, Rubenstein, Snyder, and the Marriott's-live in Montgomery County. They must know something Dyer doesn't.
Big changes coming to the Friendship Heights area.
ReplyDelete4:08 PM Can you go and troll Patch or something?
ReplyDeleteDyer supports his argument by overstating anecdotes, but he's not necessarily wrong in a broader sense. From 2013 to 2015, the median household income in Montgomery County grew less than 1 percent. (See https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MHIMD24031A052NCEN). The slow wage growth is not an anomaly. From 2007 to 2015, household incomes increased just 7.5 percent.
ReplyDeleteWhen you consider that the county's operating budget grew by more than 8 percent from 2013 to 2015, it's easy to see that we have a serious problem. The county's economic plan is not generating revenue at anywhere near the rate it needs to to cover rising expenses.
I completely agree and it is a problem, although one certainly not unique to Montgomery County. The recession and the subsequent pullback in Federal hiring and spending have created a fiscal mess in many large suburban counties whose leaders are either slow to or unwilling to adapt.
DeleteIn any case Dyer's fallacious rants about a "moribund" economy and the wealthy "fleeing" Montgomery County only distracts from the real issues and damages his credibility.
Maybe Dyer can follow your lead and start using verifiable facts rather than personal anecdotes and biased opinions to support his outlandish arguments.
1:00: Wow, you've named 5 people. Now back to reality - the ultra-rich make more than $1 million a year. They are fleeing to other jurisdictions, as the stats Forbes used clearly show. I haven't seen any political donations by Mr. Saul, but every other name you mentioned is either a hardcore socialist, or recent convert to the Wall Street Globalist faction of the Democratic party. Of course they're still here, they can afford to be, and are among the few who support the extremist, corrupt and incompetent County Council.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the difference between "the ultrarich who need to be prevented from fleeing" and "Wall Street"?
ReplyDeleteTwo new comments, yet the number of comments has fallen from 29 to 25. Looks like six comments have been martyred in Robert Dyer's War on Free Speech.
ReplyDeleteAhem... Dyer @ 8:46 PM - your comment contradicts itself.
ReplyDelete1) "The ultra-rich make more than $1 million a year. They are fleeing to other jurisdictions..."
2) "Of course they're [the Lerners, Rales, Snyer, Leonsis, the Marriotts] still here, they can afford to be..."
And it's ridiculous to describe any of those five individuals or families as "hardcore socialists". You are #FractallyWrong, as usual.
J.W. Marriott "is an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). In 1997 Marriott was called by the church to be an Area Authority Seventy and member of the Fifth Quorum of Seventy. This was split in 2004 and Marriott joined the newly created Sixth Quorum of the Seventy, serving until his release on October 1, 2011."
ReplyDeleteHe's a "hardcore socialist"... Yessirree...
10:12: J.W. Marriott died in 1985. Bill Marriott, outwardly at least, has operated a very liberal and progressive company in recent years, and now controls the establishment Maryland Democratic Party. J.W. Marriott would find all of this alien if he returned from the Great Beyond.
ReplyDelete10;00; Have you ever read any interviews with the Lerners, Leonsis, etc. that discuss political issues? Educate yourself.
Just because a handful of Fellow Travelers stay because they are committed to The Cause doesn't negate the mass exodus of their equally-wealthy peers. Please invest in a calculator - - or just read the Forbes list article.
9:08: Oh, it is indeed peculiar to Montgomery County. That's why we're free-falling, while the other counties - in the same challenging environment - prosper and remain on the top 10 list. They all had positive job growth, while we've had a net loss in jobs, and an exodus of wealth.
The moribund economy has been confirmed not only by the article and stats I linked to in this report, but by such far-right sources as the Washington Post and Hans Riemer's former chief of staff. LOL You're struggling, man. You're struggling.
There's crazy with papers and just every day walking around crazy.
ReplyDeletePsst. 7:40AM Typo. 1932. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Anna, from 7:40 AM/10:12 PM. And he is still very much alive. :)
ReplyDelete7:40: I know. Now read my comment again, and it will actually make sense to you this time.
ReplyDelete