Business Notes: Loyalty Bookstore Signs Three-Year Lease in Silver Spring

Plus: North Bethesda Gold’s Gym to close next week

Loyalty Bookstore recently signed a three-year lease in downtown Silver Spring after operating as a temporary bookstore last year Facebook

This story was updated at 11 a.m. on Dec. 22 to correct a reference to a former bookstore in downtown Silver Spring that closed. The bookstore was a Borders.

Loyalty Bookstore signs three-year lease in Silver Spring

Loyalty Bookstore, an independent bookstore based in Washington, D.C.’s Petworth neighborhood, will stay in downtown Silver Spring permanently, following a temporary “Pop-Up” shop in 2018.

The store, at 823 Ellsworth Drive, returned to Silver Spring in October with the initial plan of operating as a holiday pop-up, according to a press release. But Laurie Yankowski, the regional marketing director for the Peterson Companies, which manages the property, said the store recently signed a three-year lease.

Loyalty Bookstore was founded by career bookseller and former academic Hannah Oliver Depp. The bookstore hosts a free children’s book story time on Thursdays and Saturdays and has frequent author talks.

Depp said in an interview Thursday evening that she spent part of her childhood going to a Borders bookstore in downtown Silver Spring, which is now closed. She thought putting a bookstore in Ellsworth Place would help fill the void of a center where people could buy books and attend events.

“It seemed like a good place for people to have good conversations,” she said.

Depp said Loyalty Books will be remodeling at the end of January, which might result in the store closing for a week.

North Bethesda Gold’s Gym to close next week

Gold’s Gym at 5520 Randolph Road in North Bethesda is set to go out of business Dec. 27 at 10 p.m., a representative of the gym confirmed Thursday.

The gym is having a clearance sale on merchandise until then. Everything will be discounted between 50% and 65%.

The sales representative did not say why the gym was closing and referred all questions to the Gold’s Gym corporate office.

Gold’s Gym has multiple locations in Montgomery County, including two in Rockville.

Leadership Montgomery announces 2020 business awards

The community nonprofit Leadership Montgomery has announced the recipients of its corporate volunteer awards. The businesses will be honored Jan. 31 at a luncheon.

The awards honor businesses that support the local Montgomery County community through volunteer engagement. The winners are:

Bethesda-based Marriott International (Innovative Employee Volunteer Program)

Rockville-based Westat (Evolving Employee Volunteer Program)

Rockville-based Clark Concepts LLC (Emerging Employee Volunteer Program)

Silver Spring-based United Therapeutics (Well Workplace Award)

Additionally, Business Leaders Fighting Hunger, a group of county businesses that raised money to fight hunger, is getting the Partnership of the Year award.

Dan Schere can be reached at Daniel.schere@bethesdamagazine.com