The grocery anchor of Northeast D.C.'s vast Hechinger Mall property — a 45-year-old strip center long slated for redevelopment — is set to shutter later this spring.
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Safeway plans to close its 58K SF grocery store at 1601 Maryland Ave. NE by May 16, Dana Ward, a spokesperson for Safeway’s parent company, Albertsons Cos., told Bisnow in an email Monday.
Ward said the store’s lease is coming to the end and the company decided to “reinvest [its] resources into other existing locations.”
Hechinger Mall and its large parking lot — covering 8.5 acres on the eastern edge of the H Street corridor — has been eyed for a massive redevelopment for nearly a decade. But the project has yet to advance.
It is unclear if Safeway’s exit will move the redevelopment vision forward. The property owner and prospective developer, Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp., didn't respond to Bisnow’s request for comment.
The New York-based developer unveiled a vision for the project in March 2024, announcing that it planned to construct 2.4M SF of residential development on the site. At the time, Ashkenazy released an artificial intelligence-generated rendering of what the development could look like but didn't give a timeline or financing details.
The potential to reimagine the parcel dates back to at least 2017, when neighborhood group H Street Main Street approached Ashkenazy with a vision to develop as many as 3,000 multifamily units on the site.
In 2019, the owner went under contract to sell the property to developers MRP Realty and JM Zell, but that deal fell through.
Ashkenazy has owned the site since 2005. In addition to Safeway, the mall's tenants include Ross Dress For Less, Subway, AutoZone and Foot Locker. Retail brokerage KLNB manages the property's leasing.
Ashkenazy has lost two prominent D.C. properties this decade and has faced similar financial issues elsewhere. In 2020, its lender on the Mazza Gallerie mall foreclosed on Ashkenazy and the property was later acquired and redeveloped by Tishman Speyer. In 2022, lender Rexmark foreclosed on Ashkenazy's leasehold interest in the retail at Union Station, and Amtrak moved to seize it via eminent domain. A judge last year ruled against Ashkenazy's appeal to take some of the proceeds.
