Northwood News ♦ June 2011

Woodmoor Ousts China House, Moves Subway, Signs Chipotle

By Jacquie Bokow

By the time you read this, China House restaurant — a long-time fixture at Woodmoor Shopping Center in Four Corners — will have closed. Their lease expired at the end of May and was not renewed.

“It’s a difficult situation,” said Brian Greene, the leasing agent for Regency Centers which manages the property. “They’re real nice people. We would have been happy to keep China House here.”

Regency Centers, which manages the 67,403-sq.-ft. shopping center, is still negotiating a lease with the Subway shop already at Woodmoor to move to the China House space. Chipotle Mexican Grill has already signed a lease to take over the space now occupied by Subway.

Family-owned China House is out, national franchises Chipotle and Subway are in.

“Their lease was expiring, Subway’s was expiring,” said Greene. “Subway is a chain, but it’s also popular with a wide range of people and brings a lot of customers to the shopping center. [China House has] been a good tenant, but we had to go with a tenant which would be a better draw.

“The idea is that Subway will move over” to the China House space, said Greene. “Once that’s completed, Chipotle will move in.” Greene estimates Subway will open later this year, probably in the early fall (Sept. or Oct.); then Chipotle will open “possibly about the end of this year.”

China House Goes

“We are here 50 years already,” said Nun Kin, who’s been manager of the China House restaurant for less than two years. Kin said they were notified about two months ago that their lease would not be renewed. Although the rumor was that China House would be moving to Langley Park, Kin said that isn’t true.

“We’re closing down,” he said. “Everyone’s out of work.”

The Subway sandwich shop, considered more of a draw, will probably move into the space that had been China House’s.

Greene, though, says he’s working on a new lease with the owners for a space in Takoma Park Shopping Center, which also is managed by Regency. “It’s a smaller space. They may not be bringing everyone over.”

According to Greene, the lease for the current tenant started in 1996, but ownership changed in October 2009. “That’s typically done when a business is sold,” he said, so there may have been a Chinese restaurant at Woodmoor for 50 years but the business may have been sold many times over that time. Listed owner Mei Zhu could not be reached for comment.

Subway Stays, But Must Move

Although Greene said, “Subway’s a valuable tenant of ours,” the move — which will result in a loss of more than 500 square feet to the eatery, from 1,990 square feet to 1,440 — is not welcomed by Subway franchise owner Joseph Gomes, who runs the place with help of his sister, Stella Drozario, and her daughter, Goretti.

“I don’t want to move, but they’re forcing me to move,” said Gomes. “I don’t have [a] choice.” As of this past October, when their lease ended, Gomes had been running the Subway for five years. Less than four years ago, he and his sister spent $65,000 to remodel the store.

Subway franchise owner Joseph Gomes does not want to move but says he’s being forced to by the corporation.

Because Subway is a franchise, Regency deals with the regional corporate office of the national company which signs the lease, not with Gomes.

“We’d love to stay here,” said Gomes, but “as a franchisee, I have no power.” Gomes said he called Brian Greene, but “he didn’t want to talk to me.”

Gomes said he had no idea about the changes that would affect his store. “We heard from customers in the neighborhood about Chipotle before [corporate headquarters] told us.

“All I can tell you is it isn’t right, not with this economy.”

Vacancies Still Available for Rent

“The challenge is that parking is very tight,” said Greene, explaining why he couldn’t keep all three restaurants despite two current vacancies on the street level at Woodmoor. “From a code standpoint, we can’t add more restaurants to what we have today.”

The spaces formerly occupied by Miller’s Framing and Togs for Tots are currently empty. Greene is now in negotiations with a cell phone store for the 1,446-sq.-ft. former frame shop and is “talking with a women’s hair salon” to replace the 2,420-sq.-ft. kids’ clothing consignment store. There are no takers as yet for the stand-alone building in the parking lot on the eastern edge of the property; there are multiple small vacancies upstairs, as well.

It is due to the code restrictions on the number of parking spaces per restaurant that precludes the addition of the independently owned ice cream parlor longed-for by North Four Corners and Woodmoor residents alike.

“We would love to do it,” said Greene, “but we couldn’t put in an ice cream” place. Doing so would require a parking variance, and “that’s a long, difficult, expensive process.” ■