Save Westbard, the citizen organization that has led the fight against overdevelopment in the Westbard sector, now plans to apply financial pressure to change developer Regency Centers' plans for redeveloping the Westwood Shopping Center in Bethesda. The group has just announced a September 3-9 "Boycott Giant Week," asking Giant patrons to not shop at the busy Westbard Avenue grocery store, which is the chain's most-profitable location.
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Ira Kress, Senior VP of Operations at Giant, has communicated to Save Westbard that the grocery chain will insist that Regency Centers provide "adequate, accessible, free parking to accommodate our customers, and that parking for our customers will NOT be limited by parking needs for other retail or residential use, which would therefore include ensuring that all residential/retail parking is also adequate."
21 comments:
I don't understand - people will shop at the most convenient location. What positive effect can this possibly have on the Regency development? Once they build their apartments and townhouses they'll have more customers than ever before.
So they'll get an apartment complex, new shops, without the Giant.
Geniuses.
"the busy Westbard Avenue grocery store, which is the chain's most-profitable location."
In Bethesda? In Montgomery County? In the DC Metro area? In its entire area of operations including Pennsylvania and Delaware? Including its sister company Giant-Carlile?
Source?
This will be funny. Most of the Westbard protesters are really old, and your appetite declines as you age. I'm sure Giant will see a huge revenue drop equal to about a case worth of prune juice and a few yogurts!
Old people...prune juice
I LOL'ed.
Drop this madness. The improved Westbard will be an incredible benefit for all nearby residents, improve their shopping experiece and create a modern walkable destination. This is Nimbyism at its most extreme. These folks are blind if they don’t see the merit of this development. They somehow believe a dated sprawling strip center is preferable to a modern new development that adds dedicated multipurpose town center style green space, removes nasty surface parking lots by adding structured parking, adds more retail options and many new housing options.
@6:41 AM:Many locals feel that there are too many new housing units with no amenities. Kenwood Place Condominum residents, in particular, worry that their property will be trespassed upon by the new residents and their dogs. Hopefully Regency will fence off their new development to protect the KPC property from abuse.
"Kenwood Place Condominum residents, in particular, worry that their property will be trespassed upon by the new residents and their dogs."
LOL. Now there is a creative NIMBY argument.
In honor of Bob the Builders Giant, I will be doing all my shopping at Westbard September 3 - 9th.
Kenwood Place Condominium is a Sundown Town.
6:17: I doubt there's a source for that claim. Not unlike his unsourced claim that Woodmont Grill "enjoys the highest volume of sales of any in downtown Bethesda."
For what it's worth, I once heard that Giant's Tivoli Square location in Columbia Heights had the highest sales volume on a per-square-foot basis, anyway.
6:41, I completely agree. This development will be a huge boon for the community when it inevitably gets built.
6:17: Source was both a previous store manager in the past, and this was confirmed again during the Westbard sector plan process. It was stated that Giant had no interest in leaving, and also didn't want to have a closure period here during the redevelopment, because this is their most-profitable store.
8:17: I am not the one leading the boycott; I simply reported on it. It's called, "news." Hyperlocal news.
Maybe what he was saying was that the Giant was the Westwood shopping center's most profitable store.
Kenwood Place will need to add gates to access their parking. It will be overrun by shoppers, townhome residents their guests.
9:54: No, that's not something anyone ever said. They very clearly stated, in both cases, that this is the most profitable store in the Giant chain.
So, no proof, just hearsay?
How does hurting giant's business, or any of the other stores help to Save Westbard? Shouldn't we be telling people to SHOP, SHOP, SHOP at these stores to actually help Westbard?? Please shop local and help your community! Thank you!
7:09: I agree - a boycott of all stores would hurt the dry cleaners, pet store, Anglo-Dutch, etc.
5:18: PLenty of proof, when tenant and landlord both state something, who would be more knowledgeable than those parties?
So you believe that the only store that should be boycotted is the one that says they're not going anywhere and which has the least to lose financially?
6:58: Huh? I haven't personally proposed boycotting ANY store - I reported on the boycott effort for a news story.
So you oppose the boycott by "Save Westbard"?
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