Update: Tenleytown and Ivy City Targets are Open. Take a Look Inside.

Target officially opened its latest small format stores in the Tenleytown and Ivy City neighborhoods in the District of Columbia on November 6, several days earlier than expected. Read on to take a look inside the new Tenley Target.

Originally, the Tenley and Ivy City stores were slated to open on November 11, but Target surprised by opening early via ribbon cutting ceremonies at both locations on Wednesday, November 6.

The Tenleytown Target is located at 4500 Wisconsin Avenue, NW and occupies the space formerly held by Best Buy.

The Ivy City Target is located at 1515 New York Avenue, NE.

Both stores opened much earlier than originally planned, as news reports from WTOP and Target’s own website had pegged the Tenleytown and Ivy City locations to come online in 2020.

What are Target Small Format Stores?

Target has been aggressively opening “small format” stores around the United States near college campuses and in urban cores since 2014, and had been testing the concept since 2012.

(The Tenleytown location, which is in DC, close to American University and around the corner from AU’s Washington College of Law, ticks both boxes.)

These stores average 40,000 square feet, which is approximately one-third of the footprint of a normal Target, which clocks in at nearly 130,000 square feet.

For example, their new Tenleytown store was built out to cover approximately 46,000 square feet of space (making its footprint in the building a bit smaller than the 49,000 square feet-worth of space that Best Buy relinquished when it closed in November 2018).

As of November 2019, Target had opened 111 of these smaller footprint locations scattered around the United States.

Inc.’s Jason Aten calls these small format stores “Target’s biggest weapon against Amazon and Walmart.”

They offer a flexible format, enabling Target to, ahem, target their offerings to the neighborhood. (More on that below.)

Target is on track to open an additional 30 small format stores per year over the next few years, according to a company fact sheet.

Inside the Tenleytown Target

I had the opportunity to attend the November 6 ribbon-cutting and get a tour of the new Target from Hillary D’Angelo, Tenleytown Target Store Director, pictured (center) below amid a barrage of confetti.

Here are a couple of key details about the Tenley Target:

• The Tenleytown store occupies 46,000 square feet, of which 26,000 is “shoppable space,” according to D’Angelo.
• It includes a CVS Pharmacy (even though there is a very large CVS Pharmacy across the street), but does not include a Starbucks (because there is a Starbucks across the street).
• The store will offer Order Pickup, which permits shoppers to order an item online and pick up in as little as an hour.

It was interesting to hear D’Angelo describe how Target settled upon the selection for the Tenleytown location, which sits directly on top of a Metro Station and within walking distance of 2 elementary schools, Deal Middle School, American University and the AU Washington College of Law.

D’Angelo described several design choices specific to the Tenleytown Target based on the needs and features of the neighborhood:

1. The Tenleytown Target caters to urban parents with a comparatively large selection of kids’ clothing by Cat and Jack and other Target brands. The store offers a full range of women’s and men’s clothing as well, but features a smaller assortment on the floor.
2. Tenley features large beauty essentials and home departments, which appeal equally to families, apartment dwellers and students
3. The grocery department occupies the largest footprint in the store. It includes a fairly sizable selection of groceries, including grab and go items and affordable fruits and vegetables. This is a terrific addition to the neighborhood and fills a gap left by the Hidden Safeway’s closing in 2016.
4. When planning, D’Angelo mentioned that Target takes into account what it replaced. In this case, the Tenleytown Target replaced a Best Buy, and so this location has a more robust electronics department than small-footprint stores elsewhere in the DMV.
5. D’Angelo also noted that Target considers the complementary stores that surround it. This Target shares space with the Container Store and Tenleytown Ace Hardware. She noted that the space devoted to hardware and containers at the Tenley Target was comparatively small.

Tenleytown Target Hours

The Tenleytown Target is open from 8:00AM until 10:00PM Sunday through Saturday.

The CVS Pharmacy within the Tenleytown Target is open Monday-Friday, 9AM-7PM, Saturday 9AM-5PM and Sunday 11AM-5PM.

Curiously, the store has the CVS hours posted on its door but not Target’s overall store hours.

Target’s Rapid DC Metro Area Expansion

The opening of the new Tenley and Ivy City Targets is part of the retailer’s rapid expansion across the greater Washington, DC metro area:

1. Target opened its first store in the DMV way back in 1996.
2. In October 2015, Target opened its first small format store in the DC metro area in Rossyln.
3. In April 2017, Target unveiled a small footprint store on Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda.
4. In April 2019, Target launched new stores in Cleveland Park on Connecticut Ave NW and Shepherd Park on Georgia Ave NW.
5. In November 2019, Target opened new small format stores in the Tenleytown and Ivy City neighborhoods of Washington, DC.
6. With the addition of the Tenley and Ivy City locations, Target now has 8 small format stores and 48 total locations in the DMV employing 8,000 people.
7. Target’s corporate website also indicates a future small format store will be situated at the Waycroft at Wilson Boulevard and North Glebe Road, part of a massive new development in Ballston captained by Saul Centers that is scheduled to open in 2021.

Men’s Style at Target: Goodfellows and More.

Here’s what this has to do with men’s style:

First, Target features a ton of innovative brands for men, from Cremo’s shaving cream and terrific hair styling cream to Hello Products, which makes a fantastic, Stannous Flouride-free alternative to Colgate Total’s new SF formula.

In addition, I’ve wanted to try Goodfellow & Company, Target’s primary clothing brand for men, for a while now. With Target around the corner, I’ll have no excuse to put off testing out their chinos, T-shirts, pajama pants and more any longer.

I look forward to seeing how Goodfellow & Company compares with Goodthreads, Buttoned Down, Amazon Essentials and other Amazon Prime Fashion Brands for men.

Finally, this is as much a neighborhood PSA as anything. I live in the neighborhood and am thrilled with the new addition.

What do you think of Target’s small format stores?