2024's Top 10 Retail Center Experiences: No. 9 RIO
Picture a lake where people pedal paddle boats that look like large-scale swans, dragons, and ducks. On the shore, children ride dancing horses on a 19th Century style carousel. Joggers and strollers ply a “Path to Wellness” that rings the lake. In the evening, visitors dine on a roofed barge in the water.
Sound like a brochure for a vacation getaway? Not quite. It’s the latest customer refinement added to Peterson Companies’ RIO center, 20 miles north of Washington, D.C., off I-270.
“We happen to have a nine-acre lake at RIO, and that’s a special amenity. But being able to get people around the lake wasn’t easy,” said Paul Weinschenk, Peterson’s president of retail.
In 2019, Peterson launched a $30 million reinvestment in RIO with the goal of retaining its stature as the destination of choice in Maryland’s Montgomery County for shopping, dining, and entertainment. On the budget’s to-do list were new and enhanced retail, dining, and entertainment options; a new brand identity to unify the 760,000-sq.-ft. center, and physical plant upgrades such as the boardwalk around the lake.
Another important lakeside improvement was a new and larger performance stage for events such as Lakefront Live—a summer evening concert series with a Beer Garden and food—and Taste of RIO, a celebration that debuted in 2023 with live music, craft cocktails, and food from restaurants on the property.
RIO has worked hard in recent years to firm up its food-and-beverage offerings. It bid farewell to Joe’s Crab Shack and Macaroni Grill and said hello to Yardhouse, True Food Kitchen, and Silver Diner.
“We developers all talk about our anchors, and we have several great ones at RIO--from Dick’s and Target and Kohl’s to the Sportrock climbing center and Barnes & Noble,” said Weinschenk. “We all understand that if somebody has a good idea for an anchor and can make it happen, it’s going to improve your property.
“What’s nice about our latest good anchor idea,” he opined, “is that there’s nobody else in Washington with a nine-acre lake.”