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You know I was feeling pretty sick in recent days if I couldn't even summon the energy to post the news that
Open Road Bar and Grill will be coming to the currently under construction
99 M Street office building, in the space next to its already announced sibling
Circa on the southwest corner of 1st and M Streets, SE.
Those who read the JDLand comments got a sense a few weeks ago that something along these lines was coming when I posted
this 99 M floor plan showing "new bar concept by Circa," but good to now have Open Road officially named.
According to WBJ, it's expected that the building will be finished in late 2017 (though it better start coming out of the ground pretty soon to meet that) and that the restaurants would open in mid-2018.
And while it's neat to see 11 food options in the pipeline (and I didn't even include
Nicoletta, because, well, they will need to re-earn my trust), it's also time to start thinking about the incredible amount of retail space in the pipeline.
Arris has about 17,000 square feet of space left to lease,
Insignia on M has 11,000 sf,
ORE 82 has 5,800 sf,
909 Half has "significant" ground-floor retail space,
Homewood Suites has 4,800 sf,
F1rst has about 21,000 sf left in not only its ground floor but the
cute little two-story building it's planning at 1st and N,
Dock 79 has about 12,000 sf remaining, and
1244 South Capitol will have about 26,000 sf. And even 99 M still has another 2,300 sf of space remaining.
That's well over 100,000 square feet of as-yet-unspoken-for space that will be available just within the next two years, in addition to the smattering of space still available in existing buildings.
And adding in just the
JBG and
Lynch Half Street projects north of Nats Park would double that number by, say, 2019, as each are billing about 60,000 sf of retail and could be getting underway late this year or early next year. Which is why I left a lot of room on my Future Food map--and I bet it'll become a Future Food and Retail map before long.
One would think there is a whole lot of competition behind the scenes for all of this space. It will be interesting to watch.