Spirit Halloween is coming closer to downtown Bethesda than ever before this Halloween. The seasonal chain will open a store for 2022 at Chevy Chase Pavilion at 5335 Wisconsin Avenue NW in the Friendship Heights area of Chevy Chase. This space was formerly home to Old Navy.
A tour of Spirit Halloween has become a Halloween activity and tradition in itself. New animatronics this year include Lord Raven, Bog Zombie, Monty the crazed cymbal-wielding monkey, Lucky Bottoms, Bag o'Bones, and Nozzles the Clown.
At least something will be there. When I moved to the area 20 years ago, Friendship Heights was hopping. What caused the stores like Lowes and Filene's Basement to close. Those are not overpriced chichi stores. Why did FH die?
ReplyDeleteTBH, I never did frequent stores in the Pavillion or Mazza Gallery. I did like Lord and Taylors.
Learning
Friendship Heights used to be so great. I can’t believe it turned into a wasteland and it’s only getting worse.
ReplyDeleteWhy did lame ass malls die? Because they were lame and thankfully they've now died. Onward and upward.
ReplyDelete4:36; 1:01 and I did not think it was lame. Lots of other people didn't think that either.
ReplyDeleteSo what happened?
Learning
What happened? Capitalism happened. You don't make enough money for retailers to care that you and three other people liked malls.
DeleteThe Internet and Covid killed FH, plus the indoor mall format has definitely been dying. Neiman Marcus was never a highly trafficked store by design...super high end relying on a small number of shoppers making big-ticket purchases, but not an anchor store drawing lots of shoppers. The Internet killed Linens N' Things and Covid killed Nordstrom Rack (which took over the space). Covid killed the AMC Movie Theater. Covid and the Internet killed Lord N Taylor (everyhere...the overall company went bankrupt).
ReplyDeleteAlso, downtown Bethesda has been booming and a bunch of stores moved from FH to Bethesda...Williams Sonoma, Pottery Barn and Anthropologie. Bethesda is close enough and has so much more activity in general.
Mazza Galleria is being redeveloped for mixed-use...maybe FH can be turned into something interesting with that redevelopment as a start...maybe something interesting at the Lord N Taylor site? Would love to see a Costco come into the Lord N Taylor site, but doubt that could happen.