The new Target. Images courtesy Liz Fremer. Click to enlarge.

Garfinckel’s closed its doors in 1990. Woodies went down in 1995. Although departments stores line the streets of Friendship Heights, for more than a decade the only sizable one in what can reasonably be called the central city has been Hecht’s Metro Center location, built in 1985 and recently converted to a Macy’s. And no offense to Macy’s, but at $27 each it’s a less than ideal place to purchase undershirts.

As of this week, the center city department store slump is officially over, and urbanites finally have a convenient, affordable, Metro-accessible spot to buy socks, trash cans, and toasters. The Columbia Heights Target is finally open for business.

In case anyone wonders how BeyondDC can attack consumerism one day and revel in the opening of a new shopping destination the next, it all comes down to urban form. The new Target and its associated retail pavilion is smack in the center of DC’s most statistically dense neighborhood. It greets the street with storefronts right on the sidewalk. It’s practically on top of a Metro station. Its multi-floor layout uses land efficiently, though it would have been better with apartments on top. OK, there’s a parking garage, but it’s a far cry from the 20 acre ocean of asphalt that’s the average in front of every suburban WalMart. True, the building could have used more architectural variety at the street level, but that’s a relatively minor complaint compared to the use itself. The fact is, the Columbia Heights Target makes urban living easier without causing significant harm to the fabric of the city, and in that sense it is worth its weight in environmentally friendly gold.