City Bikes wanted to stay on Capitol Hill

City Bikes put out a press release about their move from Capitol Hill to Tenleytown (which was originally to be an expansion). 

“We’ve loved doing business in such a locally­oriented community, and wish we could stay here for years to come...” says Saul Leiken, City Bikes’ General Manager. “Our lease is up at the end of March, and we had hoped to sign an extension to keep us in the space. Unfortunately, we were unable to come to terms on a new lease, and our landlord informed us earlier this week that we had to vacate the building by the end of the month."

City Bikes would have liked to continue serving the Capitol Hill community, however the timing of the lease term makes it impossible to relocate on the Hill. The shop will now move to its upcoming Tenleytown location, which was originally planned as an expansion of the City Bikes brand.

City Bikes was happy with their store on Capitol Hill and is interested in coming back, but such a move would take at least a year. They are not actively looking for a new site, though other news outlets are reporting that they are.  They'll be announcing their new Tenleytown store today, and will be moving much of the inventory to that location. They have not ruled out a moving sale at the Capitol Hill store, but do not yet have plans for one. There will be a grand opening celebration and sale in Tenleytown, details to come later today.

Trying to think of where a bike store would make sense. One of the retail spaces in the JDLand area (which would place it near the Anacostia Riverwalk, but that's not really Capital Hill) or the new building on the Hine Middle School site perhaps. Somewhere along Pennsylvania Avenue? That building caddy-corner to International Graduate University? It all depends on the rent I suppose.

There are storefront retail spaces inside of Nationals Stadium that have never been occupied. I wonder if one of those could be had at a workable price.

Comments

[Brett Young]

I have no idea why they selected that location on Wisconsin ave for a bicycle store.
The lease is short term.
Visibility is great. But I think its a bad location for a bicycle store.

[ACyclistInThePortCity]

The Cap Riverfront area could really use a bike shop, and it has lots of growth ahead.

[fongfong]

@ Brett Young

Yes, the lease is only temporary - Georgetown Day School will be redeveloping that space at the end of the 2 year lease. But there currently are zero bike shops in Ward 3 with Hudson Trail going under.

And despite the fact that Ward 3 appears to have a car-centric population of anti-growth NIMBYs, there are still lots of folk who ride and will need service.

Sure, not the same concentration of millennials, but lots of kids and parents. I have no idea how to run a bike shop (and make money doing so) although skewing toward outfitting these demographics would make sense.

And after the lease is up, there are plenty of other spots available on that strip, including the former HTO, that can accommodate a bike shop.

[Crickey7]

Upper NW is pretty underserved by bike shops. I know, because my commute routes cover nearly all of NW West of the Park. There's virtually nothing between downtown and Bethesda. This store will do fine.

[Mike]

If there were really a huge demand for bike shops, there'd be more bike shops. The reality is it's a really tough business, and it's almost impossible for small local places to compete with the big boxes. We'd like it to be the case that they could make it by focusing on quality, and routine maintenance, etc., but that just doesn't seem to be the case. (There are a few I can think of, but they seem to survive by pulling people from all over the region, not on a hyperlocal customer base.) I don't see how that can possibly change unless people were willing to pay car-dealer mechanic's rates and spend more on annual bike maintenance than they'd spend on a whole bike from wal-mart.