Big box entrance: when Target goes urban, the result is neither “box” nor “big”.

Has anyone out there ever seen a big box store with an entryway like this?  Following on the heels of my article about the Bozeman bank entrance, this one is comparatively small and humble: only two doors.  In an era of mounting concern for loss prevention, these doors lack the visible security apparatus the customer has come to expect.  And then there’s the aesthetic: mock lanterns flanking the doors, herringbone brick walkway, ivy creeping along the cornice, extruded bricks every fifth row of the wall.  If it weren’t for the decals on the glass doors stating rules and operational hours, one might conclude that this is an entrance to a law or an accounting firm, maybe even a university building or an old apartment complex—the type with a foyer leading to eight units.  But it isn’t…obviously.  This brand subtly promotes itself above the lintel: it’s the ubiquitous discounter Target.  But what has the Target Corporation done here with this entrance?  Isn’t the company downplaying its brand?  And why?  That logo almost blends in with the bricks.  Well, to be fair, this isn’t the primary entrance to this specific Target, but it’s an entrance nonetheless.  And while it’s already unorthodox for a big box entrance to adopt such low-key branding, it’s even more nondescript when one steps back a few dozen feet.

This big box entrance is so recessed that I had to outline it in highlighter yellow; more prominent is the adjacent doorway to 750 North Glebe, an apartment building that comprises the majority of the floors above this quiet little Target.  I’ll concede once again that this is not the main entrance; Target isn’t that goofy.  People don’t want to have to think to get into a store. This is the back side of the building, along Tazewell Avenue, a quiet (relatively speaking) local residential road with townhomes opposite the structure in the photos above.  But its the back side of a sizable retail component, as evidenced by the loading dock in the lefthand edge of that photo, which is just as subtle and tasteful as that big box entrance.

So why does Target fit so snugly and meekly into this large mixed-use shell?  A Google Street View of the North Glebe Road entrance reveals a more conventional approach to the doorway that 95% of the customer base most likely uses, but only slightly more conventional.  It’s still a radical departure from Target’s longstanding tradition of building bulky beige blocks in middle-class communities with a trade area of at least 35,000 people nearby.   Any American who’s visited a city of that size knows what I’m talking about.  Despite its overwhelmingly suburban reputation, Target is better known than most of its department store competitors (Kohl’s, JCPenney, Meijer) for its willingness to pioneer more urbanized building typologies; it’s increasingly common for folks hailing from the heart of a big city like New York or Chicago to live within a mile or two of a Target, which typically occupies a smaller building footprint than the suburban counterpart, due to high land values and the need to conserve space.

The one in these photos is no exception.  North Glebe Road is an arterial that cuts through the heart of urbanized Arlington County, Virginia, and this particular Target is in the Ballston neighborhood; I featured an article only a block or two away just earlier this year.  Ballston is rapidly urbanizing and densifying.  Until about seven years ago, the parcel in question—framed by North Glebe and Tazewell—hosted a Mazda car dealership, an Enterprise car rental lot, and a few smaller retail structures.  The redevelopment took some time, having received approval by the Arlington County board in 2016; no doubt the presence of a dry cleaners (in one of those smaller structures) required considerable remediation.  But the Waycroft Apartments opened in early 2020 with nearly 500 units, offering several first-floor retail spaces (including the DC staple Silver Diner), and, of course, the Target as the anchor tenant, measuring 41,000 square feet—about one-third the size of a suburban prototype.

Even here on busy North Glebe Road, the big box entrance is surprisingly low-key and tasteful.  Sure, it features a few branded awnings that, using the Target shade of red, signal the retailer’s presence.  And there’s one use of the world “target” with the lower-case text that the brand has deployed since 2018.  But everything else about the Waycross building signals that it is anything but the home to a massive discount retailer.  Target Corporation might be hedging its bets, or it might be complying with Arlington County’s sign regulations, which potentially limit the size, illumination, height/positioning, and overall garishness of signage in a fancy commercial residential area like Ballston.  (I don’t know this about the county code; I haven’t dug deeply enough to confirm.  But I can certainly assert that virtually all of the office buildings that flank the busy streets in Ballston are subtle with their signage.)  The fact remains: even if this Target displays its brand less overtly than most, and it hides itself in the first floor of a structure that is primarily apartments, the income and population density within its trade area is so great that Target can get away with it.  Ballston is just one of many ultra-dense nodes in this rich county that hosts suburban areas just south of Washington DC.  Arlington, though a county, is smaller and more dense than many major American cities.  And the planning leadership throughout the county has targeted the most dense development around WMATA metro stations; with a subway station just a few blocks to the north, the site of Waycross Apartments is a node for workers, residents, and shoppers partaking of the growing amenities in the Ballston Quarter, a redeveloping shopping node (formerly Ballston Common Mall).

Where does this leave Target and its unconventional approach to the big box entrance?  The retail giant, despite some recent PR blunders, has remained consistently savvy regarding its expansion into densely populated settings, bringing its amenities and products to an urban market that, as recently as 2005, associated Targets almost entirely with car-friendly suburbia.  Even though Target entered Washington DC proper way back in 2008, it did so with a structure that functions like a multi-story big box—a vertical power center that crams a bunch of familiar suburban retailers into one small footprint in the busy, dense Columbia Heights neighborhood.  I covered the area around this extruded mall, called DC USA, in a 2018 article without ever really making it the target (pun intended) of my research.  These photos are from 2018.

Here’s a recent Google Street View of DC USA, with Target remaining its biggest anchor tenant just it was when it opened seventeen years ago.  It’s not hideous, and it certainly hosts more retail tenants than Waycroft Apartments in Arlington; the Target is much bigger too.  But it’s not a mixed-use facility; it’s a power center typical of the suburbs, just elevated across multiple floors.

Compare DC USA to the Waycross Apartments, and it’s likely urban America is confronting a new generation of mixed-use retail, at least in terms of appearance.  Design trends have shifted considerably between 2008 and 2020.  Fundamentally the immediate trade area for the Target at Waycross in Arlington, with almost 500 units under the same roof, is greater than the Target for the vertical power center at DC USA, which has plenty of residences across the street but none at the same building footprint.  And, as bricks-and-mortal retail continues its slow retreat while home prices climb upward, providing new housing is more critical.  Many retailers have scaled back the number of physical locations; just look at the closures from CVS and Walgreens in the last two years.  Meanwhile, this Target in Ballston is smaller than one might ever find in a low-density suburbia, but with the trade area being so thick, the Targets in Arlington County are often closer to one another.  Another Target stands barely two miles to the east at the Rosslyn Metro Station, then a third Target less than two miles west in Falls Church.

Thus, this Target in particular, leasing prime retail space at a large apartment building, has partnered with a real estate entity that uses clever design techniques to downplay the suburban nature of the shopping within.  Returning to Tazewell Avenue, with those two humble doors that defy a big box entrance, the fenestration immediately to the right doesn’t offer much of a clue either.

The building lacks the prominent windows typical of first-floor retail.  It looks like an office or residences.  While residences most certainly comprise some of the upper-floor windows, it’s impossible from the Tazewell vantage point to determine where the big box entrance ends and where the apartment units begin.

Contrast the exterior view with one from the Target interior.

Sure, the Tazewell side was never intended to absorb most of the customer ingress; it closes and locks an hour or two before the primary doors on North Glebe.  (And yes, it does indeed have the theft prevention devices.)  But it shows a willingness for the apartment developer to work with an aesthetic that is softer on the eyes, less overtly suburban for the retail space, yet still capable of supporting a Target scaled to urban sensibilities.  And Target, as the anchor tenant, is willing to oblige.

Those “upper floor” windows look a little goofy from the inside, but who’s gonna judge?  For the older, established townhome units on Tazewell opposite the Target, it offers a much nicer aesthetic than staring down the ugly backside of a suburban monstrosity.  Appeasing the neighbors no doubt helped spreed approval of this mid-rise, which at eleven stories is much higher intensity than the car dealership that preceded it.  With this much thought put in the big box entrance, who can imagine what the suburbs will achieve when they catch up, fifteen years from now?