I think we just have to accept that Silver Spring is going to continue to have certain locations where some stores can only make it for about a year or so (depending on whether or not they're actually someone's livelihood or, as in the case of Milwaukee's Finest Guitars, more of a hobby). Maybe that's not a bad thing - as long as we can continue to find folks willing to gamble, against tough odds, that their business is going to make it for the long term, regardless of what logic might dictate. Maybe the variety that is a by-product of having a rotating segment of store fronts makes up for the duplication that seems to be the other trend in the area. It's pretty obvious that there's no real game-plan for the area. This is the best we can hope for, apparently - specialty businesses, run by folks without a lot of experience in the field, drawing minimal amounts of traffic to the area, who either see the light in about a year or run out of resources to stay in business.. Which makes complaints about parking losses resulting from developments in back of the FoxBay building and east of there harder to justify.

One has to wonder why storefront rents in Whitefish Bay are so high. With all of the vacancies, I would think the market is quite soft - which should lead toward reasonable rents. The fact that is apparently isn't so, would suggest that the current property owners are a bit disconnected from reality. It would seem that this has to change, if we are going to ever have a vibrant business district.

Are rents really that much higher than they are for similar storefronts in, say, Shorewood? Or is it that there isn't enough traffic for these businesses to justify the rent at its current level - or at any relatively reasonable level?

I think there is room for a honey dip donut shoppe or another coffee shop.

I would love to see a local breakfast place like cafe Hollander or broken yoke open up on silver spring!