Dang it. After spending two and a half years in College Park, MilkBoy has closed, according to this press release issued yesterday. Thankfully, art performances produced by The Clarice will continue, but still – this one stings.
MilkBoy was a place whose grand opening was greatly anticipated by our Route 1 communities, especially by local music lovers elated to now have a local place to check out and hear live music. What happened? Did enough of us not turn out and support this endeavor? We suspect this to be the case. After all, we also heart live music but only managed to make it to a handful of shows during Milkboy’s time here because…life. money. kids. But still, if we want these places to make it and succeed along the Route 1 corridor, we’ve *got* to turn out to more of these events and support our local businesses. Speaking of….
Live Music Venues Near Route 1
The following are a sprinkling of places near Route 1 that offer live music from time to time. Check them out all the time, obvs, but especially when they make live music available to us. 🙂
Brentwood Arts Exchange, Brentwood
New Deal Cafe, Greenbelt
Archie Edwards Blues Exchange, Hyattsville
Maryland Meadworks, Hyattsville
Streetcar 82 Brewing Co., Hyattsville
Mediterranean Cafe, Mount Rainier
Know of more? Add to the comments and we’ll update this list.
Joint statement from MilkBoy and The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland
December 28, 2019
MilkBoy set to depart College Park, while art performances produced by The Clarice will continue
After spending two and a half years in College Park, MilkBoy has closed. Shows produced by The Clarice are expected to continue at this location, and additional details about future plans for this venue are forthcoming.
From MilkBoy:
It has been a pleasure working with everyone at the University of Maryland and partnering with them on this unique venture. We have loved our time in College Park, the community, and especially the people who became a part of our extended family. The city of College Park is a wonderful place and poised for great things ahead. We wish all our friends there – and at the university – nothing but success. At our MilkBoy locations in Philadelphia, we’ll continue our mission of providing our customers with the best experience serving excellent food and drink with great entertainment.
From The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center:
From the beginning, we have aimed to add to the vibrant artistic community of Greater College Park. We feel it has always been our responsibility to be present in the community we value and create opportunities for community engagement with our Visiting Artist program. MilkBoy helped pave the way for us to do that in new and innovative ways, and we are grateful for their years of partnership. We will continue to present performing arts by national and international creative innovators and artists at this location, and we wish MilkBoy the best on its continuing ventures.
***
The issue with College Park retail is that there is not a large enough non-student population. College Park has to slow its student developments and start more market-rate non-student developments in earnest. Look at Silver Spring and Tysons? Price pressures in DC are pushing professionals to the suburbs. But what does College park have to offer? A bunch of luxury apartments for students only and student oriented bars.
The current long-term residents aren’t in large enough numbers to support these great new businesses. Right now, we’d have to visit Milkboy every week whereas if there were 5000 more of us, we could visit once once a month or two.
For every student bed they develop, they need to create two non-student beds for the next ten years. Otherwise, the retail church will continue and we’ll continue to fall in love with great retail only to have its doors shut on us a few years later.
Great feedback and points made, adelphi_sky. Thank you for taking the time to write. And yes, totally agree that there needs to be more of a balance (or even a tilt) in the available housing stock. Believe the upcoming Bozzuto development (in old Plato’s spot) is non-student but that property itself is taking a while to come around. Just hard to see these places try and then not succeed. Another reader commented that the cities should do exit interviews with exiting businesses, find out what happened, what can do to improve. Your points along with what might be gained through those interviews would undoubtedly be invaluable to our local retail communities collective success. Thanks again for writing!