It's like the Running of the Bulls, but cuter and with less chance of injury.
The 14th annual Running of the Chihuahuas drew tens of thousands of spectators to The Wharf district in Southwest Washington, D.C., on Saturday, exactly as the developers intended.
Some dogs yapped, prancing and jumping at the ends of brightly colored leashes as they waited for their turn to race. Others burrowed into the arms of their humans or got pushed along in baby carriages in groups of two or three, gazing suspiciously at the surrounding crowd packed along the pier of the 3 million-square-foot waterfront development to see the Chihuahuas run.
"It is one of our signature events of the year," said Jennifer Currie, the director of programming for The Wharf. With a slim advertising budget, double-take-inducing events like the Running of the Chihuahuas balance audience appeal and practical purpose, drawing new visitors to one of Washington's newer mixed-use developments, encompassing hotels, restaurants, retail and trophy condo space.
"This event has literally grown hand in hand with the Wharf," Currie said. "It's actually how I have my job."
The Wharf and the dog race grew side by side
When Currie launched the event 15 years ago — with one year off during the pandemic, making it the 14th annual Running of the Chihuahuas — D.C.'s Southwest waterfront looked very different from today's glitzy sheen. Back then, she had a client partner who wanted to bring the Running of the Chihuahuas, modeled after Spain's Running of the Bulls festival, to the nation's capital, and Currie needed to find a space.
Although developers were still working through concepts after purchasing the mile-long slice of Southwest waterfront that would become The Wharf, there was a park perfect for the races.
"That really began this journey side by side between the event and the property," said Currie, who formally joined The Wharf in 2019. Still, the roughly $3.6 billion project took more than a decade, with the final phase wrapping up in 2022. Last year, The Wharf's developers, Hoffman & Associates and Madison Marquette, sold their holdings in the property to PSP Investments. The next month, The Wharf closed on a $1.15 billion refinancing deal that gave it legroom for future growth.
The Wharf averages about 8 million visits a year, according to Placer.ai data provided by The Wharf. Over the years, the property has seen "very consistent patterns of growth as the neighborhood has expanded," Currie said.
If an event doesn't support business, it doesn't drive property value
That first year of the race, 60 Chihuahuas were entered. This year, 168 were registered with a 70-Chihuahua waitlist. When it came to bipedal foot traffic, last year's Chihuahua run drew 47,000 visits, according to Placer.ai data provided by The Wharf. Last weekend, that number clocked in at 40,000.
As the races began, the four-legged athletes were divided into small, medium and large Chihuahuas, topping out at about 15 pounds. Each weight class was split into heats, and the winner of each heat advanced to the next round until a champion was crowned.
Some Chihuahuas raced without costumes, while others wore crochet sweaters or handmade costumes, as there was a costume contest later in the day. A few of the dogs raced with a competitor's focus as the spectators cheered, but many Chihuahuas got distracted as soon as the emcee shouted "Go," ambling sideways down the turf track or standing stock-still, refusing to move at all. Other racers treated the track as more of a dog park social, romping around with their competition.
In between all those races, onlookers milled in and out of The Wharf's restaurants, carrying around Shake Shack burgers or scoops of ice cream nestled in fish-shaped cake cones from Fat Fish eatery. In addition to the Chihuahua run, Mardi Gras, a cherry blossom celebration, a lighted boat parade and Oktoberfest with its dachshund race comprise the top five retail days for commercial establishments at The Wharf, Currie said.
"Everybody likes quirky, and that's where Chihuahuas come from," Currie said. "It's good proof of concept, because it's fun to do an event, but if it doesn't support the business, then it doesn't drive the overall value of the property."
In that sense, the events staff carefully times the events to draw people to the property when foot traffic might otherwise lag. Given its outdoor-centric focus, The Wharf's busiest season runs from mid-spring to early October, so "some of our busiest events are off peak season," Currie said. She wouldn't do a big event in the middle of June, for example, because the traffic is already there.
"These events are more of a marketing vehicle to bring new people to the property," she said. A unique event might draw people in for an afternoon, even keeping them through the evening if there's more to do, but assessing the return or longer-term traffic it might draw is trickier.
Currie said the proof is there, but it's indirect. A visitor might participate in one of the raffles that The Wharf operates for the Chihuahua race, and then their email is fed into the development's newsletter directory. With that, Currie said, a perhaps one-time visitor is getting frequent emails about goings-on at The Wharf, and they might come back for a movie night or a live jazz performance.
"Now, can I directly measure one person coming back?" she asked. "That's a little tougher. Anecdotally, I can tell you yes … we've had people who've been doing this now seven, eight years."
Chris Deminenza lives in Alexandria, Virginia's Old Town neighborhood and posted up for his second race with his dog, Kiki. "We love giving Kiki a chance to go run and have a good time," he said.
But Deminenza, 29, said he and his wife frequent events at The Wharf "all the time."
One couple even met at an early Chihuahua run, had kids and now continue attending the events as a family, Currie added.
A quirky event 'humanizes a place'
Foot traffic aside, these offbeat events also help a newer development like The Wharf carve out an identity in Washington, where long-established neighborhoods dominate the public interest.
It gets media attention for one thing, Currie said, meaning people who might otherwise ignore the waterfront space are talking about it. This year, that translated to $15.6 million in estimated media value, The Wharf said, across 111 media placements and 55 broadcast segments.
Currie likes to call The Wharf a neighborhood, and an event like the Running of the Chihuahuas "humanizes a place," she said. "It's a place that actually has a personality, and I think people respond to that."
The abject goofiness of an event centered on pocket-sized dogs racing further defines that personality.
"It's a little bit of that, like, 'Hey, we can laugh at ourselves,'" Currie said. "We can have fun, so you can come here and have fun."