Friday, May 3, 2019

Loyal Companion pet store opening Saturday in Rockville

Loyal Companion is replacing Bark! at Congressional Plaza in Rockville. The new store will host a grand opening celebration tomorrow, Saturday, May 4, 2019 from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM, and on Sunday, May 5, from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM. Loyal Companion aims to be a one-stop shop for pet owners, offering everything from pet food and toys to grooming and training classes.

Sears sign being removed at closed Montgomery Mall store (Photos)

Sears has been closed for several months at Westfield Montgomery Mall. But workers have now begun removing the iconic sign from the department store's facade.

Thursday, May 2, 2019

Smashburger Rockville closed - for good?

Smashburger at 1800-A Rockville Pike has been closed for a number of weeks. But a sign in the window insists the closure is temporary, while giving no rational explanation for the situation.

Everything inside the restaurant is still there, from furniture to still-lit menu boards. There's even a contrary banner declaring the restaurant is open, strangely enough. Given the tight profit margins in the restaurant field - and the high cost of doing business in Montgomery County, it is rare that a restaurant can afford to close for any extended period and make a comeback.

Smashburger had entered the County with high hopes several years ago. But in moribund MoCo, each of their locations has wound up closing over time. Sometimes it seems the only business owners making a profit besides the Council's developer sugar daddies are the folks who print those now-ubiquitous "Going out of business!" signs, which are plastered in windows countywide these days.

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Sprint store closes at Montgomery Mall, more signs of Eyebobs

Another retail closure in
Montgomery County
Not even the traitorous Verizon Guy could save Sprint from the moribund Montgomery County economy. The Sprint store at Westfield Montgomery Mall has permanently closed. Montgomery County has suffered a net loss of retail jobs since 2000, according to the Maryland Retailers Association.

In other mall news, future tenant Eyebobs has installed some Coming Soon signage at their space. Eyebobs aims to be the Warby Parker of the suburban mall.


VA named State of the Year by corporate relocation mag, MoCo loser in Halo Labs HQ move

This is another humiliating week for the Montgomery County political cartel. Just as the latest statistics show office vacancies rising higher in Montgomery, Business Facilities magazine named Virginia "State of the Year" for corporate relocations and economic development. Amazon announced that the first several hundred employees are being hired for their HQ 2 in Crystal City, one of the deals that helped Virginia win the award. Virginia also won the contest for the first U.S. manufacturing facility for Canada's Flow Alkaline Spring Water, which will bring a $15.5 million investment in the state. And just yesterday, Halo Labs announced they are relocating their corporate headquarters from Philadelphia to Burlingame, California, skipping over moribund Montgomery County.

Once again, MoCo officials were caught asleep at the switch in the competition for Halo Labs. The company should have been a natural fit, as Montgomery County's biotech sector is the only bright spot in the County's moribund economy - Halo Labs is a life sciences instrumentation company. Their Horizon system allows subvisible particle analysis for pharmaceutical research. How Montgomery officials could have slept through such an opportunity is beyond imagination.

“Virginia snared more than $5.5 billion in capital investment for its top two projects, and its top five job-creation efforts netted nearly 28,000 new jobs in a diverse and well-executed growth strategy that has made VA a high-tech force to be reckoned with,” Business Facilities Editor-in-Chief Jack Rogers said Wednesday. Rogers declared that Virginia isn't just a top player in the tech sector, but is "dominating the field." Montgomery County hasn't even made it out of the locker room. They're too busy getting stuffed into a locker by Ralph Northam.

Virginia has shown it can not only soundly beat Montgomery County in the region's traditional sectors, but also quickly conquer new frontiers. In fact, it is already on the verge of erasing Montgomery's thin advantage in MoCo's only successful sector, biotech. Virginia "can walk and chew gum at the same time—which in this case means they’re upgrading traditional industries while accelerating emerging growth sectors,” Rogers said yesterday.

One of the least-discussed of Virginia's many advantages in attracting Amazon was its cutting-edge efforts in the exploding field of unmanned aerial vehicles, one of great interest to Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos. Just days ago, it was announced that Virginia will be the first state in the nation where drones will deliver packages, as the FAA cleared Wing to operate a pilot program in Blacksburg.

No wonder Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan is spending his week tilting at presidential windmills, and signing hundreds of radical far-left socialist bills into law in Annapolis. He has no economic development news to tout. Montgomery's elected officials spent the week arguing about whether taxpayers should give County government employees a 6% or 9% raise, after raising Council salaries to $137,000 and promising you a 4.8% property tax hike to pay for all that - but continue to take no action on our economic development and traffic congestion crises. Heckuva job, Brownie!

Wednesday, May 1, 2019

Update on Commonwealth Indian restaurant in Rockville

Another of the most-asked-about restaurants by readers is the long-delayed Commonwealth Indian at Pike & Rose. There has now been much progress on the construction inside, lighting fixtures and some furniture are in place, a counter is taking shape, and signage and other design accents have been installed outside.
Commonwealth Indian is located at 11610 Old Georgetown Road, which was previously home to La Madeleine, one of many restaurant chains destroyed by the anti-business Montgomery County Council. Stay tuned for an opening date.



Montgomery County police respond to call for more security at mosques during Ramadan

Montgomery County Councilmember Will Jawando released a letter to acting Montgomery County Police Chief Russ Hamill Monday, in which he requested the department "increase security" at mosques in the county during the holy month of Ramadan. Ramadan begins the evening of Sunday, May 5, and ends the morning of Wednesday, June 5. The department last night issued a statement saying they have received Jawando's letter, and many inquiries about it from unidentified individuals.

In the statement, MCPD says they will continue to work closely with faith communities in the county, but will not ever publicly announce or disclose specific security plans. A public discussion of strategies and tactics "may diminish – not enhance –  the safety of our residents," MCPD says.