Dawson’s Market has closed at 225 N. Washington Street at Rockville Town Square. The permanent closure ends a long but tumultuous run for the grocery store at the struggling Town Center development. It also leaves an anchor retail space vacant at property that already has no shortage of empty storefronts. A bigger-name chain grocer could spur more shoppers to patronize Rockville Town Square, but property owner Morguard faces the same challenge as the original developer here, in that the poorly-designed-and-placed grocery space was turned down by many such supermarkets almost twenty years ago.
The space is well-sized for brands like Aldi, Lidl or Trader Joe’s. If one of those can be attracted here, the famous brand will have to overcome the shortfalls of being hidden away from the busy state highway MD 355 at the very back of the development, and the almost universally-despised parking scheme at Rockville Town Square. The latter was improved in recent years by…..