Bloomingdale Restaurant Plans Raise Eyebrows
If you spend any time on Bloomingdale or Eckington blogs or email lists, there could be no question in your mind that residents of the up and coming neighborhood(s) (Bloomingdale was just treated to a profile in the Washington Post) want more retail and services. They want a full service, sit-down restaurant, by all means. But now that plans for an enormous new dining and nightlife complex in the long-fallow Old Engine Co. 12, a 111-year-old firehouse at 1626 N. Capitol St., have been at last been finalized, area residents appear to be deeply skeptical. The Washington Business Journal first reported on what's in store for the firehouse property last week, which will be called 2020 Martini at Engine Co. 12:
... the D.C. eatery will be conceived around a theme of fire and water. The first floor will serve brick-oven pizzas, baked in an imported Italian oven sculpted with a fire engine facade. That floor will also include a small pasta bar and a sushi bar. Martinis, too, will be served from a 30-foot bar that will appear as if it's ablaze and have water running through its center.Sounds a bit ... over the top, to be sure. But aesthetic issues aside, there's some serious questions about the sustainability of such an ambitious project in this neighborhood. The property is being developed by Brian Brown of NextGen Development, and Twyla Garrett of Cleveland-based Garrett Entertainment Corp. Garrett has already built a similar, Italian-themed multi-story restaurant complex in a similarly gentrifying area of Cleveland, which has a music and flash heavy web site you can check out at your own risk. But when you look at the numbers quoted in the Business Journal story, it's hard to imagine how this venture could possibly add up. Brown purchased the property for $600,000, a perfectly reasonably price, but plans to put in $2.4 million for renovations. Garrett plans to add another $1 million herself. How many tables would you need to fill every night to service $4 million of debt every month? It would have to be in the hundreds. It's just hard to imagine a restaurant of that style, in that neighborhood, being able to attract that large of a crowd every night.
Plans for the second floor call for a lounge atmosphere with live music performances, where pizzas and sushi will be delivered by a glass-enclosed conveyer belt resembling a ladder, Garrett said. She's also developing a proposal for nearby XM Satellite Radio to have occasional broadcasts from a mini-studio she and Brown would outfit.
The third floor will be devoted to the Mocha Fusion Coffee Lounge, an espresso bar. And finally, a rooftop deck will offer tapas.
Over at Eckington (way better than spotsylvania), there's some seemingly valid concern that this amount of investment will mean certain disaster.
It will probably fold after 10 months. The search for a new tenant will begin–a process that will linger since no one will want to pay a premium for the lavish renovations and glitz (while the owners try to hold out for someone who will help recoup these losses). After another 10 months, the owners will give in, a new agreement will be signed, and, 6 months later, a new restaurant will open.A handful of other neighborhood residents we've spoken agree. They're excited, by all means, that something is finally being done with this space, and that a restaurant will be opening nearby. But the consensus seems to be that this particular project is needlessly financially risky and overly gaudy, when what they'd like to have is a neighborhood restaurant with staying power.
What do you think about the plans for 2020 Martini? What kind of restaurant were you hoping to see in the firehouse space?