Vendors at the St. Elizabeths Gateway Pavilion have scored what most of D.C.’s retail tenants can only dream of: free rent.
But the deal seems a little bit less sweet if you consider the rent the city was initially planning to charge them, just $1 a month.
The Gateway Pavilion opened in the fall as a way to attract residents and nearby Coast Guard employees to the St. Elizabeths East Campus, the site of a former mental hospital that the city plans to redevelop into a mixed-use community. Mayor Vince Gray announced last year that pop-up vendors there would only have to pay $1 in monthly rent. But evidently the city decided even that was too much.
“We waived the $1 fee for Microsoft, Giant Peapod and other vendors so that they could come to the area and experience the market for themselves,” Chanda Washington, spokeswoman for Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development Victor Hoskins, says in an email. “We plan on continuing to offer this deal until April 1, at which time we will reexamine the introductory rates.”
A list of the retailers currently enjoying the free rent at the Gateway Pavilion, provided by Washington, is below.
Vendors and Partners
· Microsoft (for our Bytes and Bites pop-up)
· Peapod/Giant
· Orange Cow (coffee pop-up)
· Revolution Ravioli
· Banana Love Muffins
· Thunderbeast Rootbeer
· People’s Bao
· Gotta Go Now
· Union Kitchen
· RunningByrd Iced Tea
· Capital City Mumbo Sauce
· Murphs Hot Chocolate by DC Patisserie
· Fitness classes by FruFit and Anacostia Yogi
Food Trucks
· Cajunators
· Carolina Q
· Capital City Chicken & Waffles
· Curbside Cupcakes
· DC Slices
· DC Sliders
· Doug the Food Dude
· Kabob Bites
· Neat Meat
· Peruvian Brothers
· PhoWheels
· Sang on Wheels
· That Cheesecake Truck
Rendering courtesy of the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development