Transportation

Friendship Heights, once known as a hub for high-end shopping, is struggling as the pandemic accelerates an exodus of retailers

By Luz Lazo
September 26, 2020 at 7:09 p.m. EDT

The economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated the financial problems of retailers in the commercial district around the Friendship Heights Metro station, reigniting appeals for a major revival of what was once a corridor of high-end shopping.

Department stores Lord & Taylor and Neiman Marcus, two of the first major retailers to arrive in Friendship Heights decades ago, are having liquidation sales this fall. Mazza Gallerie, the mall anchored by Neiman Marcus, facing foreclosure, was sold at auction this summer. Even some smaller tenants, including a McDonald’s, have since closed.

In all, about a dozen retailers and restaurants have closed shop recently, adding to the already troubling number of empty storefronts along this section of Wisconsin Avenue on the D.C.-Maryland border.

“The pandemic obviously was a tipping point for many businesses,” said Nolan Rodman, who owns Rodman’s, a specialty grocery and pharmacy and Washington institution since 1955. “The real problem had started long before that.”

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Luz Lazo
Luz Lazo is a transportation reporter at The Washington Post covering passenger and freight transportation, buses, taxis and ride-sharing services. She also writes about traffic, road infrastructure and air travel in the Washington region and beyond. She joined The Post in 2011. Follow https://twitter.com/luzcita