What’s Really Happened to Downtown Retail (Part II): Rittenhouse Row, The Exception That Proves The Rule
In January 2023, I was traipsing around Center City Philadelphia, assessing the state of retail there for a talk that Center City District’s Paul Levy had asked me to give. And it hit me: PHILADELPHIA IS THE EXCEPTION THAT PROVES THE RULE. The struggles were apparent and yet, parts of it seemed to be doing well. Really well. In this second article of a five-part series (see below) on “WHAT’S REALLY HAPPENED TO DOWNTOWN RETAIL?”, I explore the fascinating case study of Center City’s Rittenhouse Row, a four-block shopping street that should be struggling mightily due to the post-pandemic challenges which have received such outsized attention – slow return-to-office, perceived social disorder, etc. And yet it has not only stabilized since the dark days of 2020, but resumed an upward trajectory that began almost undetected, amidst the so-called “retail apocalypse” in the later 2010’s, such that today one could plausibly argue that it has “arrived” into the highest echelons of urban shopping precincts nationwide, worthy in mention in the same conversation as Boston’s Seaport District, Washington D.C.’s Georgetown and Venice Beach’s Abbot Kinney. In so doing, it has become the counternarrative hiding in plain sight, offering proof that having the right sorts of retail spaces on the right kind of shopping street, amidst an absence of viable alternatives, can more than overcome the hemorrhaging of daytime employment as well as concerns about public safety in a Downtown setting.