REI to Anchor Uline Arena Development

• January 21, 2015

by Lark Turner

Update: In an email to journalists Wednesday, REI confirmed its plans to open a flagship store in NoMa. UrbanTurf will publish more details of the proposal when we hear them next week.

We originally reported this news in December. See our full article below.

Published on December 3, 2014:

REI will be the ground-floor tenant of the redeveloped Uline Arena, a Douglas Development representative revealed on Dec. 3.

Confirming a rumor that’s been floating around for at least a year, Douglas’ Paul Millstein told 6C’s Planning, Zoning and Environmental Committee that the project has started and a “deal is done with REI.” Though Millstein said the agreement had not been finalized, he was adamant that REI had committed to the project. REI confirmed with UrbanTurf that the company was in talks with Douglas.

The recreational sporting goods store will take up the entire ground-floor space, Millstein said. He drew a distinction between the boxy REI stores typically seen in the suburbs and the more architecturally bold flagship stores the company is known for in cities like Seattle and Denver. The Uline store, he said, will fit into the latter category.

Plans for the redevelopment of Uline include 50,000 square feet of retail and 150,000 square feet of office space. The arena is best known as the site of the first Beatles concert in the U.S. The group played the venue in 1964. Douglas Development has entertained plenty of ideas for the structure in the 1100 block of 3rd Street NE (map), including, at one point, an “Eataly-like” concept. Eataly has since signed a letter of intent with Capitol Crossing, the massive office and retail project to be built over the 3rd Street Tunnel.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/rei_to_anchor_uline_arena_development/9292