Gorjana, a jewelry brand known for its simplistic gold designs and layering sets, is entering the Washington, D.C., area with two new leases.
The company has signed a five-year, 1,675-square-foot lease at 3029 M Street NW in D.C.’s Georgetown neighborhood, with landlord EastBanc.
It also signed a second, 940-square-foot lease at 4810 Bethesda Avenue in Bethesda, Md., with landlord, Federal Realty.
Both stores are scheduled to open on Oct. 15.
“Gorjana is yet another forward-thinking brand to complement other leaders in retail that have recently opened in Georgetown,” Philippe Lanier, a principal at EastBanc, told Commercial Observer. “In particular, as we enter the holiday season, their elegant and accessible product line lends itself to a better browsing and shopping experience in-person, and we look forward to continuing to bring in-demand physical retailers to Georgetown for the community to explore firsthand.”
As the retail industry learns how to recover and adapt to the current environment, there are a limited number of brands who are both expanding and are connecting well with their customers with an in-store and online merchandise strategy, Lanier added.
“Here, in Georgetown, we are engaged with some great brands that fit in this category, and either have struck, or are close to striking, flexible market deals with these tenants to expose them to the local community,” Lanier said. “Gorjana is one such brand [which] combines great storytelling with a quality product and is proving to connect with their customer.”
That includes such brands as Everlane, Aerie, Faherty Brand and Avocado Mattress, all of which have signed leases in Georgetown this year, per Lanier.
EastBanc represented itself in the deal, while Jennifer Price, a principal at KLNB, represented Gorjana.
The Bethesda store is part of the 536,000-square-foot, mixed-use mall area known as Bethesda Row. The company now has 23 stores in total.
“Currently, D.C. and Bethesda represent one of our top metropolitan e-commerce regions so we are thrilled to bring our branded retail store experience to these communities,” Gorjana Reidel, Gorjana’s co-founder, said in a prepared statement. “We want to share pieces of our home in Laguna Beach with every community we become a part of and the D.C metro area is going to get that in a really big and beautiful way.”
Keith Loria can be reached at kloria@commercialobserver.com.