It's the end of an era at Mazza Gallerie in the Friendship Heights area of Chevy Chase in Northwest Washington, D.C. Most of its stores and restaurants are closed, including the AMC Theatres cineplex. A large portion of the mall is now entirely closed off to the public. The escalators leading to it have been deactivated, and security guards leap forward aggressively if one attempts to even approach the now-motionless mechanized stairways.
It's sad to witness the end of Mazza Gallerie. I remember when it was a crowded place, just as Friendship Heights was once a bustling business district. Mazza Gallerie was designed to be an upscale mall in its decor, much like the demolished White Flint Mall. It certainly had that ambiance in the golden years.
The mall's new owner has already signaled it plans to redevelop the property as mixed-use, with residential far outweighing the retail space to be included. Based on the announced square footage of the retail portion, a replacement cineplex is not in the cards.
Developers do not like cineplexes these days. Even though a cineplex has been shown to draw 20,000 more people to an urban center per weekend, the profit from the specific development outweighs the economic health of a neighborhood, from a developer's standpoint. Thus, Bethesda now finds itself as virtually the only town of its size in America without a mainstream cineplex. It's shocking - but not unpredictable, given the inept and corrupt elected officials who have been steering the county since 2002.
Even businesses on this side of the Maryland-D.C. line have been devastated by the flight of the rich from Montgomery County. While carpetbaggers taking a helicopter view may not realize it, a large portion of the clientele for once-booming businesses like Lord & Taylor, Woodward & Lothrop, Paul Brothers Oldsmobile, and the Jennifer 1 & II Cinemas were always coming from the Maryland side.
Now that much of that wealthy clientele has relocated to lower-tax jurisdictions in the region, the business climate in Chevy Chase has utterly collapsed. "Neiman Marcus has always been a family tradition," reads a sign in the shuttered department store's window. Alas, many of those families have taken their traditions - and their hefty pocketbooks - to their new homes in McLean, Leesburg, and even Howard County and Washington, D.C.
As much as the rich are reviled in 2021, their tax dollars sustain ever-swelling government budgets wherever they establish their residence. Wherever is increasingly not here. A Council staffer once tried to explain to the eternally-perplexed County Council that 25 wealthy residents alone accounted for many, many millions of annual Montgomery County revenue. He was promptly ignored by the Council, and the County economy continued to decline.
Remember, this is the same crowd who told us that the massive-yet-struggling Wisconsin Place mixed-use development was just what the area needed. Oops. Now Wisconsin Place II, III, etc. will solve the problem? Give me a break. While a transit station is indeed where housing density should be placed, the underlying problems with County policies have to be solved first to turn the area around.
Instead, we have a prime example of the Now More than Ever Syndrome. No matter how spectacularly the Montgomery County cartel and their well-compensated minions on the County Council and Planning Board fail, no matter what the crisis or turn of events, their solution always is the same: more residential development. More! More!!
With no scrutiny or criticism from local media, the cartel has been able to bull its way forward, despite a record of disastrous failure that has utterly destroyed the County's finances and economic development climate. Until our corrupt elected officials are replaced, expect to see more empty storefronts. As always, the first step is admitting you have a problem.
12 comments:
Does memory serve that Mazza Gallerie was originally a gas station in the late 60s, early 70s?I dimly recall there being such at that intersection, with the odd Woodies driveway around the side, and Howard Johnson's where the bus stop is. Does anyone remember what was on the SE corner or Western and Wisconsin?
Malls have been a dead concept for almost 15 years as anyone in CRE could tell you. No amount of partisan politics would keep people shopping at brick and mortar stores when Amazon and other retailers exist.
12:25: The problems in Friendship Heights extend far beyond the mall; many of the storefronts now empty there are not in malls. As far as the decline of malls in general across America, many are poorly run by owners who want to demolish them for more profitable residential developments. Many of the anchor stores and other chains that have closed inside of malls didn't fail because of consumer preferences, but rather because they were acquired by Bain Capital types who sucked them dry of all value, and then threw the husks away into bankruptcy.
Friendship Heights is really losing its luster. It's a shame.
The MoCo Cartel has failed the County so badly on this.
Well said
Also Montfort Raising taxes on the homeowners is just setting a match to the rush of wealthy and middleclass out of Montgomery county
However it is the increasing crime that is the main reason
Maryland has become a sanctuary city for MS 13 and a crime stop for DC criminals to hop on beltway and steal cars and burglarize
Grew up in Bethesda ...so little crime in an incredibly safe neighborhood we grew up our entire lives
No burglars no break ins
Now it’s a daily occurrence
There are no police patrolling the streets
I have not seen one police car down our residential neighborhood
It is horrible
My parents house was invaded while they slept
God almighty thank god they didn’t wake up
Shudder to think
They never thought they would leave but leave they did
Robert, as one of the wealthy individuals you claim to represent, I can assure you I'm doing fine. Yes, Maryland raised my income tax rate a quarter percent a decade ago and, yes, I was able to survive. Just as my NoVa counterparts have been able to survive their similarly modest tax hikes, as well.
Minor tax policy changes might affect some people (lower income retirees, maybe?), but I've certainly never heard of a CC neighbor or friend moving because they think a few dollars saved is worth uprooting. And certainly not to places with identical tax structures like Howard County.
5:29: I wrote a previous article years ago on a study that showed the flight of the rich from Montgomery County. It not only detailed the specific jurisdictions they relocated to, but also the total dollar amount in lost tax revenue for MoCo and MD that they took with them.
While Northern Virginia dominated, Frederick and Howard counties in Maryland were on the list. The study could not identify why the residents moved, but provided empirical proof of the migration of wealth out of Montgomery County in recent years.
This was further proven by Montgomery County dropping out of the top ten wealthiest counties in America, and Howard County replacing it on the top 10.
This post is extremely depressing. I hate seeing friendship heights turned into a residential area. Just awful.
Anonymous @5:29 is obviously an economic illiterate, since he (or she) seems to think taxpayers do not respond to tax incentives. The results of the latest Census show otherwise -- high-tax states like NY and CA that suffered net populations losses will lose members of Congress, while other states with no state income tax or more tax-friendly regimes will gain. Many higher income retirees, including retired federal civil servants, also leave for lower tax states, and I plan to be one of them. The problem isn't just the high taxes, but the failure of high taxes to close the chronic deficits in MoCo's budget. I do not want to be left holding the bag when the whole Ponzi scheme collapses. And as Anonymous @8:18 PM says, rising crime is another factor behind the exodus. It is one thing to pay high taxes, but if the government shirks its most basic responsibility to enforce the law and protect law-abiding citizens from criminals, what are we getting for our money (and to anticipate one rebuttal, the quality of public education is deteriorating as well)?
End of an era!
First we lost P.F. Changs, now the entire neighboring Mazza Gallerie mall.
2:26 is obviously illiterate illiterate. We're talking about the wealthy. That you think federal workers are high income says everything about what you're able to contribute to this conversation.
1:52 PM has a reading comprehension problem, as well as being an economic illiterate. I didn't use the word 'wealthy' to describe federal retirees. Rather, I included federal workers as being 'higher income' retirees, versus the description 'lower income retirees' used by 5:29 AM. Federal retirees enjoy a fixed pension, based on salary history and years of service (and those under the previous system get about half their annual salary at retirement), in addition to their savings through the federal version of a 401K and SS benefits. Virtually no private companies offer a fixed pension these days. I'm a retired federal worker, and I can testify that the system of federal retirement benefits is very generous, relative to folks in the private sector. If you retire as a 14 or 15 after 3 decades, you are doing pretty well. And if federal retirees are homeowners who have been living in Bethesda for 2 or more decades, they also have significant home equity wealth. Other commenters are living on some other planet if the think retired federal workers are low income retirees.
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