Redwood was one of the major victims of the closing of the nearby Regal Cinemas Bethesda 10 and Barnes & Noble bookstore, along with American Tap Room and Lebanese Taverna, among others. The Montgomery County Council declined to require the developer at 7272 Wisconsin Avenue to provide a replacement cineplex, despite having full authority to do so in the Minor Master Plan Amendment process. A study showed a cineplex showing mainstream blockbusters (which the remaining Landmark Bethesda Row cineplex does not) can draw an average of 20000 more people to an area per weekend, a loss of traffic that can clearly be seen in lighter sidewalk crowds and hundreds more vacant parking spaces in the two Bethesda Row public garages.
34 comments:
You forgot to mention Riemer's disastrous nighttime economy task force....
Redwood failed because they charged $33.00 for a hamburger. It wasn't the closing of Regal you dope!
Why no mention of the landlord Federal Realty? They are allowing Pike and Rose to cannibalize both Bethesda Row and Rockville Town Square.
4K TV
Netflix
Uber Eats
10:15 AM Both big hyperlocal downtown Bethesda stories. I understand if you're in Frederick you don't care.
No one covers Bethesda like Robert Dyer.
8:52 AM "Hello fellow kids"
Looking forward to this opening! Much needed addition to Bethesda Lane.
Redwood became a failing overpriced restaurant well before Regal and B&N closed. B&N are downsizing all over the country, and closing most stores. B&N were promptly replaces by a smaller, but very good Amazon Books, only the eighth in the county. No, Amazon Books isn’t the same for free loaders who don’t buy anything, but treat the store like a library. Of courses we gained an Anthropologie & Co. Inc, Department Store, one of the largest of a new breed of high end retailers. Lebanese Taverna was a loss, but somehow with 199 other restaurants in walking distance, it has become an extremely competitive market especially for larger expensive restaurants.
If Carr was forced to include an expensive urban cinema, the Elm and Wilson would likely never have penciled out for the developer, and we would still have a antiquated Regal Cinema with sticky floors. We would have lost 2500 office jobs, 480 new residents, three new restaurant/retail spaces, a new Red Line entrance, a new Purple Line Station, a 500 bike parking garage, an enhanced CCT connection and the new urban plaza and green space.
IPIC in Pike & Rose is failing because the high cost to add it to the development means much higher ticket and concession prices. Very few new urban cinemas are doing well. Your often repeated 20000 patron spin off claim is most likely a fabrication by a boastful urban cinema developer seeking approval with a very optimistic claim. “Well council members...if all of my movie showings are sold out, I bet I could fill 20,000 restaurant seats in a weekend!” Stop claiming this as a fact if you can’t quote a source.
1:48pm So Gaithersburg will have two new theaters (Rio is almost all new and Kentlands is brand new), Wheaton got a new theater the past couple of years, silver spring and Rockville were renovated.
A luxury theater is central to the new Boro development in Tysons...
What do you know that all these theater chains don't? :)
A new theater near Bethesda Row would increase foot traffic to restaurants and stores in the area.
The new Cinepolis in Kentlands charges $85 for a family of four on a Friday or Saturday night. Ridiculous.
"A luxury theater is central to the new Boro development in Tysons."
It's one of several amenities. But central to the new development is 700 new residential units in the first phase.
Will Robert confirm that the Towson Cinemark theater is the project that he keeps referring to as bringing 20,000 patrons to the immediate area around the theatre, supporting nearby restaurants, bars and cafes?
If this is correct, it really does just sound like a boastful developer, claiming unconfirmed wishful success, to a magazine reporter. I’m not at all familiar with Towson’s, but it seems quite different than downtown Bethesda.
What say you Robert? Is this indeed the source of your claim? If so, let’s talk about how true the claims turned out to be, and the successfull spin a city might get if the build a multiplex urban cinema. If not, kindly let us all know about your source, or stop making claims that it is true.
@4:37 That article mentions Torrent Nightclub. Looks like the place is open but barely. Other than an event on 9/6, their last posted even was in May. They're only open 10pm-2am, and only Fridays and Saturdays. What a business -- only open 8 hours a week!
I blame Riemer!
1:48: If price was the reason, Redwood would have failed years earlier. They did not. It, like the others, only closed after the theater did.
1:48: Carr themselves showed a cineplex in their original submission plans to the County. Many others would be ready to take their place had they punted on 7272.
iPic's prices are no higher at Pike & Rose than elsewhere in the chain. Their problem is that the other chains caught up quickly, at a slightly lower price point. No theater is cheap these days.
8:34: Nope - it was an actual study. It may have been the one the guy at Towson referenced, but it was a study, not just a guy talking.
4:26: No kidding - Tysons has all the jobs. They're now adding the housing. A much smarter approach than MoCo has taken, which is to build luxury apartments filled with subsidized contract and airbnb residents, while surging the population with low-income new residents and flushing out the rich. Sheer fiscal genius!
I don’t disagree that a theater would certainly help boost downtown Bethesda. My concern is Robert’s insistence that the county force a developer to include a theater.
I enjoy my cheap AMC tickets. Depending on the day and time it’s like $5-$7 frequently for new releases.
Saith Dyer: "It was an actual study. It may have been the one the guy at Towson referenced, but it was a study, not just a guy talking."
"[The] approach [that] MoCo has taken, which is to build luxury apartments filled with subsidized contract and airbnb residents."
"Surging the population with low-income new residents and flushing out the rich"
You'd be frog-marched out of academia if you tried this sort of fabrication on a research paper.
4:14: You just keep repeating this, Saul Alinsky. For the 1789th time, the original developer who sought the Minor Master Plan Amendment for 7272 Wisconsin was seeking a height exception BEYOND WHAT ZONING AT THE TIME ALLOWED.
The very intent of such a process is to extract benefits for the public, in exchange for allowing a private developer to profit beyond what the law allowed at the time.
To not do so in the case of 7272 Wisconsin, was a clear violation of the Council's role as representatives of THE PEOPLE.
Reminder: The Wilson Building will contain 360,000 feet of office space. Dyer is constantly complaining that there is too little office space being built in Montgomery County.
So I will ask (nicely) again. Please post a link to this “actual” study so we can all learn if it was a fair assessment of the potential benefit of an urban cinema, or was it a puff piece created by a potential develop or planner.
Thanks for confirming that the Towson quote was not what you were referencing.
Any info on the departure of Yogaberri, who posted a sign that they closed August 25? I can’t say that I was a fan of their product, but their store was very cool looking, and a real icon and colorful little gem in Bethesda Row. I guess they couldn’t or wouldn’t compete with four other frozen dessert stores (Haagen Daas, Dolchezza, the newer Class 540 and soon Jenni’s) all within about 750’.
5:07: It's not office space getting filled by premium corporate tenants like Northrop or Intelsat. We're subsidizing a lot of these smaller tenants in downtown Bethesda under the Montgomery County government program, too, with taxpayer dollars. No halo effect whatsoever. Not a win.
4:47: You'd be bodyslammed for mocking facts verified by actual government data.
What kind of food will they have Robert?
"You'd be bodyslammed for mocking facts verified by actual government data."
Yet you are never actually able to cite your "actual government data".
#DodgingDyer
#Fabrication
"We're subsidizing a lot of these smaller tenants in downtown Bethesda under the Montgomery County government program, too, with taxpayer dollars."
More fabrication.
Also, you still don't seem to grasp the fact that smaller tenants pay higher rents per square foot than larger tenants.
8:20: I can't fabricate an actual government program started by Ike Leggett to address the collapsed office market in Montgomery County only a few years ago. Taxpayers take the hit in order to get less desirable, smaller tenants to fill empty floors designed for major corporate headquarters.
All it does is falsely lower the vacancy rate at taxpayers' expense, and the problems continue unaddressed.
No two tenants are the same. You can't make generalities in a weak office market like this.
8:19: It's been regularly cited over the years.
6:36: Asian fast casual.
"To not do so in the case of 7272 Wisconsin, was a clear violation of the Council's role as representatives of THE PEOPLE."
The PEOPLE did get an exaction in the form of a new Purple Line station and CCT tunnel. Carr was under absolutely no obligation to provide either. A publicly owned transit station is a way superior to another overpriced private sector movie theater, especially when two have opened in the area in the last 10 years.
11:33AM - Wait ... you mean he’s ... lying?
I spent a very enjoyable late-summer afternoon in Bethesda Row yesterday. Delightfully cool, dry air and brilliant sunlight. I had a delicious espresso gelato at Dolcezza and browsed a few books at Amazon Books. But what struck me was the sheer size of the now-vacant Redwood - it was really dumb for Federal to lease such a big space to just one restaurant - no wonder they failed.
Dyer has the same economic view as the CEO of Foulger Pratt.
@4:13 - Thank you for that! Now I'm really excited. I read (and watched) Crazy Rich Asians last year and have been dying to try Singaporean street food!
11:29: Wrong! The Purple Line station was the whole reason supposedly justifying the Minor Master Plan amendment to begin with. Wanting to build 29 stories was a separate issue, for which public benefits would have been extracted by a government that actually represented the people, instead of the developers.
9:59 You realize that you're contradicting yourself.
So you said the troll violated state and federal laws. What laws exactly? I’m interested in knowing this.
Obviously you know much more about these laws.
See https://www.whoishostingthis.com/resources/blogger-defamation for your answer
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