WASHINGTON, DC-After years of courting a major national discount retailer, the District has finally hooked a big fish. Target has signed on to purchase land in Columbia Heights where it will build a 180,000-sf store. Plans to open a Kmart fell through a few years ago after the chain declared bankruptcy, and in September, Wal-Mart decided against opening a 100,000-sf location at the Rhode Island Place Shopping Center in Northeast DC.

A sum of $42 million in public financing is being made available for the project, the total development cost of which has not been announced. Most of the public funds will go toward the construction of a 1,000-vehicle parking facility.

Construction of the new store, which will sit at 14th Street and Park Road, is expected to get under way next spring with a scheduled completion date of 2007. The project is one of several retail endeavors in the city.

"You can't look up without seeing a crane traversing our skyline--and we've made every effort to get those cranes into our communities," Mayor Anthony A. Williams says in a statement announcing Target's purchase agreement. "Just look around our city. We have 12,000 units of affordable housing--half them are East of the River; 4,500 units planned for the Anacostia Waterfront; a new Best Buy and Container Store in Tenleytown; the reality of a true retail center at Skyland; and negotiations for a Costco at Ft. Lincoln."