After recent trends in furnishings, interior design, and medspas, another hot category in retail leasing is emerging in downtown Bethesda: urgent care clinics. Minute Clinic at CVS was a pioneer in this, but the first true urgent care center to open was Righttime Medical Care in 2019. A second is rumored to be filling the PassionFish space at 7187 Woodmont Avenue. Now GW Immediate and Primary Care has leased the vacant half of the former Lebanese Taverna space on Arlington Road at Bethesda Row.
GW Immediate and Primary Care is staffed by personnel from The GW Medical Faculty Associates, a non-profit medical group spun off from George Washington University in 2000. As the name suggests, it provides typical urgent care services, as well as long-term primary care. It currently has three clinics in Washington, D.C., located in Cleveland Park, McPherson Square, and near the Rhode Island Avenue Metro station.
The addition of a clinic also reflects Federal Realty's own recent trend of adding more businesses that serve everyday needs of residents alongside popular restaurants and boutiques. That's only underlined by GW's future space being sandwiched by LensCrafters and Roosters Men's Grooming Center. With multiple high-rise apartment developments on the boards or newly-completed near Bethesda Row, the demands for more practical services are only going to grow in the coming years.
Seems like a good use for that location. Not much foot traffic or a corner location to drive customers for a retail or restaurant use.
ReplyDeleteThe Passion Fish space on the other hand is just the opposite. It seems like a waste to have a medical office at such a great corner, with some nice outdoor dining space, facing what is arguably one the most prominent portions of Bethesda Row, directly across the street from the future Capital Crescent Civic Green. I suppose landlords need to make money and keep spaces filled, but this is the best tenant they could come up with? A Shake Shake or similar destination restaurant would have been the perfect tenant.
This GW Clinic will be a practical addition to Bethesda Row. I wish it was balanced out with some additional nightlife places though. The Corrupt MoCo Cartel simply doesn't get that which is why the Downtown Area is moribund after 8PM.
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