Costco Plans New Store in Alexandria

ALEXANRIDA, VA-Costco is expanding its presence in the Washington, DC area with a new big box store here. The company tapped H&R Retail to broker the purchase of 12 acres of land along the Route 1 corridor. “We’re very pleased to be affiliated with a great company like Costco and assist in its continued expansion in the Washington/Baltimore market,” said David Ward, H&R Retail president, in a prepared statement. “We look forward to helping them find additional great sites like this one in Alexandria.” Ward did not return a call to GlobeSt.com in time for publication.

Ward, Marc Katz and Geoffrey Mackler of H&R Retail and Daniel Venable with NWAP II represented Costco in the transaction. The seller, National Amusements, had in-house representation. The new store, which will open in Spring 2013, will be located at 7940 Richmond Highway.

Ward’s comment suggests that Costco will continue to add to the 16 stores it has in the area. It already has plans to break ground on a site in Wheaton, MD this year. Whether it will expand as aggressively as another big box retailer—Walmart—that is also pushing its presence here is still unclear.

Certainly, though, the greater Washington, DC area is seen as under retailed given its high per capita income and respectable pace of job growth. Delta Associates’ end of year retail report on the area projects, together with Stephen Fuller of George Mason University, that 23,600 payroll jobs will have been added to the Washington metro area economy during 2011 when the numbers are finalized. It expects that the Northern Virginia submarket will be the leader in job growth with 15,700 new jobs for the year, while suburban Maryland and the District will have produced 4,600 and 3,300 new jobs, respectively. For 2012 and 2013 it expects job growth for the metro area to increase 30,300 and 39,500, respectively.