Constantine Stavropoulos' announcement that he is opening a sibling to Adams Morgan's
Diner and
Tryst in Columbia Heights is fitting, with a Sunday
New York Times profile about the retail surge - particularly bars and restaurants - in Columbia Heights and its eclectic go-to spots, in contrast to big box stores in the 14th Street section of Columbia Heights.
Stavropoulos purchased the ground
floor of 1020 Monroe Street for $1.9 million from
Madison Development, the folks who own the commercial
Lyon Bakery and have fairly recently entered the world of commercial real estate having purchased the building to convert into condos. Madison purchased the building for $3.2 million in 2010 from a bankruptcy trustee sale.
The 7,000 square foot ground floor space is housed in a 1920's building that Stavropoulos hopes will "attract a mixed crowd" and "will be great for people watching." Constantine especially likes that the building is older and offers interesting architectural elements - old tiles or pressed tin ceilings in addition to open space. Stavropoulos and his father
George Stavropoulos will design the interior, as his father is the architect behind
Stavropoulos Associates.
Prior to settling on 11th Street, Stavropoulos's choice for a fourth location had been to anchor in what's now
Room & Board - a prolonged lobby he ultimately lost. Despite the loss, he says 11th Street has always been on the radar, "since
Red Rocks opened and
Room 11 hadn't yet been conceived." It wasn't until recently that he found the space on 11th, he also had happened to know the owners for years, since they supply some of the bread for his three establishments. "It's
Barry and Fia Madani," he reminisces. "I didn't know they were developers."
Though Stavroupolos says he has received a positive response following his announcement, he hears neighborhood concerns about noise and parking that might result from a high volume restaurant that's open 24-hours. Stavropoulos acknowledges that 11th Street is no Adams Morgan. That he does not know it as intimately hinders him from being as proactive to concerns as he'd like.
"They're totally different neighborhoods in terms of capacity, infrastructure, traffic patterns," he said."The biggest problems with parking and noise in Adams Morgan is during six hours of the evening on Friday and Saturday nights. And those are not the times I'd recommend visiting the neighborhood. The other 150 hours of the week are terrific." As co-president of the Adams Morgan BID and a business owner of Tryst and The Diner for 13 years, he would know.
In private meetings, neighborhood Q&A's and at ANC meetings, he acknowledges he will have to learn about the high traffic times by collecting information from neighboring businesses and monitoring things once the place opens. He is already working toward banding together with Meridian Pint in particular as well as other restaurants on the street to address parking.
"We have to anticipate problems and find solutions, both before problems arise and as they come up," he said.
He hopes that many regulars come from the Metro, bus or within walking distance. He also notes menu items and pricing won't necessarily attract a partying crew past the wee hours. Even in Adams Morgan, his restaurant's late hours attract and eclectic mix as opposed to a boozy one. "My restaurants attract students, construction workers, freelancers," he said. "People are going to and from work all the time. We're not in an era of 9 to 5 anymore."
And as for the name? "I changed the name to The Diner from The Fishbowl the week before it opened," he said. "Then my mother asked if
I was opening a fish restaurant." Opening date is slated for fall of 2011. Meanwhile the city is planning a new park directly across the street (
rendering, right)
Washington DC real estate development news
A June 2010 grand opening is in the works for Meridian Pint, 3DG's much-anticipated Belgian beer hot spot at the site of the old Bi-Rite Super Market at 3400 11th Street, NW, Washington DC in Columbia Heights.
3DG CEO John Goldman 
tells DCMud, that the $3 million project came out almost exactly as his all-in-one architect, construction, and development team planned.
The building "looks almost identical to the rendering," says Goldman, and is a "contemporary architectural statement that's unique for the neighborhood. We hope it will inspire others to think outside the box."
Goldman blames "lots of permitting and regulatory delays from the city" as the reason his team was unable to finish exterior construction by their original Summer 2009 deadline, but assures that they have now "delivered the shell to the tenants" whose interior design and renovation is "well underway."
Those tenants, by the way, are John Andrade, the current co-owner of Asylum on 18th Street, NW and his team of managers and contractors. Andrade signed on to a ten year lease of the 9,500 s.f. space two years ago, after Warehouse Theater owner, Paul Ruppert backed out of opening his own live music and food venue at the space.
Although Andrade maintains his new place is "not a sports bar," he still plans to coincide what he's calling the "grandiose grand opening" of Meridian Pint and his downstairs bar Joint Chiefs with the start of the 2010 World Cup Games in June.
Andrade boasts that he "did the bulk of the [interior] design work myself," and says progress behind the doors is moving at a "blistering" pace. But until the opening, he's keeping his vision for the interior "Top Secret."
