Just Salad opens in Friendship Heights

Just Salad is now open at 5300-D Wisconsin Avenue NW at what's left of Mazza Gallerie in Friendship Heights. The fast-casual salad restaurant is the latest addition to the ground-level retail spaces in what is now known as the Residences at Mazza. Reusable bowls and a large number of plant-based alternatives to meat (the real thing is also still available at Just Salad, though) are part of what the chain calls "Earth-friendly" dining. 

To celebrate the Chevy Chase opening, Just Salad is offering 50% off your first digital order. Use the code MG50 through June 30, 2026. That's a good deal in tough financial times like this in Montgomery County.

Just Salad, Inspire Nail Bar to open at Residences at Mazza in Friendship Heights

Just Salad and Inspire Nail Bar are the latest businesses to sign leases for retail space at the Residences at Mazza at 5300 Wisconsin Avenue NW in the Friendship Heights area of Chevy Chase, Washington, D.C. They join Total Wine, Wonder - a food hall (yeah, that ship has sailed, folks), and TJ Maxx at the redeveloped site of the Mazza Gallerie mall. A luxury mall - demolished!

Just Salad is similar to Sweetgreen and CHOPT, but with a more expansive menu that makes it the best of the three for people who don't want "just salad" for lunch.  They have dinner plates that look more like restaurant entrees than salads, and promote sustainability with returnable, reusable bowls. A nail bar is, well, a nail salon. The chain has many area locations, and specializes in waxing as well as nail services.

The additions continue the effort to recalibrate Friendship Heights downmarket after the flight of the rich to lower-tax jurisdictions tanked "Montgomery County's Rodeo Drive" of high-end boutiques, malls, and restaurants. So go get that salad, a Potbelly sandwich, and grab a six-pack at Total Wine, and think of the Montgomery County Council. Yee-haw!

T.J. Maxx moving back into Friendship Heights location (Photos)

Two years ago, T.J. Maxx announced it would be returning to its former location at 5300 Wisconsin Avenue NW in the Friendship Heights area of Chevy Chase. Now the discount department store is moving back in. The address may be the same, but the building has changed, with the upper levels of the former Mazza Gallerie mall having been demolished and replaced with residential housing. With the flight of the ultra-rich from Montgomery County sending once-ritzy Friendship Heights into a staggering decline, landlords in the area are attempting to meet the market for more affordable retailers like T.J. Maxx.

Mazza Gallerie demolition update (Photos)

The demolition of Mazza Gallerie continues at 5300 Wisconsin Avenue NW in the Friendship Heights area of Chevy Chase. While the top levels of the mall are being destroyed, new owner Tishman Speyer will keep the retail pavilion and underground parking garage. On top of that base, the company will construct a 7-story-tall residential building with 325 apartments. TJ Maxx has already signed to be the anchor tenant, but the remaining retail and restaurant spaces are still available for lease.

Mazza Gallerie redevelopment project secures construction financing in Friendship Heights

Developer Tishman Speyer has secured construction financing for its planned redevelopment of the Mazza Gallerie mall property at 5300 Wisconsin Avenue NW in the Friendship Heights area of Chevy Chase, Washington, D.C. The firm announced this morning that it now has $150 million in financing from RBC Capital Markets, and the necessary District of Columbia construction permits to move forward. Demolition work has already begun at the site of the shuttered mall.

When completed, the new development will feature 320 rental apartments and 90,000-square-feet of retail and restaurant space. The new development will retain the mall's concourse level and underground parking garage. It will include a mix of studio, 1-bedroom, 2-bedroom, 3-bedroom, 2-level townhouse and terraced penthouse units. Forty of the units will be set aside as affordable housing.

Tishman Speyer acknowledged the "repositioning" of the neighborhood, which has lost much of its high-end retail over the last decade due to the flight of the rich from Montgomery County to lower-tax jurisdictions in the area, in its press release today. As a result of the shifting demographics, the company has proposed a new combination of boutiques and neighborhood-service-oriented retail, full-service and fast-casual restaurants, and a holdover anchor in TJ Maxx.

The new property has been designed with Danish architecture firm 3XN. “Given its prominent location and expansive Wisconsin Avenue frontage, the redeveloped Mazza Gallerie will serve as a gateway to the Friendship Heights neighborhood as well as the District of Columbia as a whole," 3XN partner Jens Holm said in a statement this morning. "Working with Tishman Speyer, we have designed it with an undulating façade to create movement and visual interest along the Avenue, while also incorporating terraces, courtyards and street-level retail that will offer opportunities for residents and the local community to meet, thrive and mingle.”

“With its prime location above the Friendship Heights Metro station on the border of D.C. and Maryland, the reimagined Mazza Gallerie will blend the walkable amenities of downtown living – including local restaurants, shops, grocery stores and parks – with immediate proximity to several of the region’s long-standing premier suburban neighborhoods,” Tishman Speyer Senior Managing Director Paul DeMartini added in a statement.  “We are thrilled to have secured financing and to take these next steps towards making our vision a reality.”

Delivery of the project is anticipated for 2025. Davis Construction and Smoot Construction are the co-general-contractors for the project. 3XN is partnering with Eric Colbert & Associates, which is serving as Architect-of-Record.

Photo courtesy Tishman Speyer

TJ Maxx to return at redeveloped Mazza Gallerie property in Friendship Heights

The new, mixed-use development replacing the Mazza Gallerie mall at 5300 Wisconsin Avenue NW in Friendship Heights has signed its first retail tenant. It's a familiar name at this address: TJ Maxx. The discount department store closed at the mall last December ahead of its demolition. Its return signals the property owner is under no illusions about the downward demographic shift that has taken place in this once-ritzy Chevy Chase shopping district over the last decade. The flight of the rich to lower-tax jurisdictions in the region gutted what was once described as "Montgomery County's Rodeo Drive" on the Maryland side of the line, leaving empty storefronts and downmarket replacement tenants in its wake.

Mazza Gallerie demolition underway in Friendship Heights (Photos)

Demolition of Mazza Gallerie mall at 5300 Wisconsin Avenue NW is now underway. This demolition won't be like that of White Flint Mall last decade, nor of Lakeforest Mall next year, however. Property owner Tishman Speyer is demolishing the top levels of the mall, but will retain a base of the retail pavilion and the existing underground parking garage. It will then build 7-story-tall residential building with 325 apartments on top of that base, and include a substantial 25,000 square feet of ground level retail and restaurant space. The demolition process appears to be a very methodical one so far.

Last store closes at Mazza Gallerie and demolition prep gets underway (Photos)

Mazza Gallerie is officially a dead mall in the Friendship Heights neighborhood of Chevy Chase. The last store at the mall, TJ Maxx, has closed after its final holiday shopping season. Mazza Gallerie's new owner isn't wasting a minute in moving ahead with demolition and redevelopment of the mall property. 

Construction barriers were placed along the Wisconsin Avenue side of the site Friday. 44th Street, behind the mall, will close to traffic on December 27, 2022. 

Although it's hard for those who have relocated here more recently to believe, Mazza Gallerie was once a successful and busy mall. Alas, with the flight of the rich to lower tax jurisdictions in our region, the high-end retail area of Friendship Heights lost its most-generous shopaholic benefactors. Mazza Gallerie on the D.C. side, along with the Wisconsin Avenue strip once called "Montgomery County's Rodeo Drive," were the victims of two decades of failed leadership by the Montgomery County Council. The county's corrupt political cartel has controlled a majority of the seats on the Council since 2002, a period which saw that "Rodeo Drive" turn into a strip of vacant storefronts and smashed-out bus shelters.

Crooks have a solid grip on the future of Montgomery County, but they can't change the past. The golden age of Mazza Gallerie will always be remembered, much like White Flint Mall and, soon, Lakeforest Mall. "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good."

“But let it be. Horatio, I am dead;  

  Thou livest; report me and my cause aright

  To the unsatisfied.”

TJ Maxx closing in Friendship Heights (Photos)

TJ Maxx is closing at 5300 Wisconsin Avenue NW in Friendship Heights. The store will close its doors forever on Saturday, December 24, 2022. A closing sale is underway. Mazza Gallerie is going to be demolished to make way for a new, mixed-use development. Relics of the once-crowded mall now share facade space with advertisements and political posters slapped on by passersby, after the flight of the rich from Montgomery County to lower-tax jurisdictions in the region tanked the Friendship Heights retail economy.