GoodFellas: "What do you do? I'm in construction." Copacabana in Silver Spring?

By Sonny Goldreich

The announcement that native Cuban celebrity chef Alex Garcia plans to open a restaurant anchoring the Downtown Silver Spring complex set my mind to wondering about how big a splash he could make.

I reached out to the group behind the project yesterday and asked whether the eatery will have room enough for live music and dancing, the sort of nightlife that Montgomery County planners have been begging for to help reverse the aging of our tax base.

"With construction not yet under way, we have not finalized our entertainment offering," Garcia's partner, Spencer Rothschild, wrote back in an email that somehow got stuck in my junk file.

That's not much but it's enough to start speculating about the possibilities of enlivening Silver Spring and giving The Peterson Cos. a shot at improving the cool factor of their property.

Consider Garcia and Rothschild's other ventures. Never mind that Garcia starred on the Food Network. Never mind that the partners have a string of Latin fusion eateries in several boroughs of New York. Never mind that they launched their own brand of rum this summer. Never mind that their AG Kitchen could erase the bad taste of Romano's Macaroni Grill, which has been closed for almost a year.

The big news is that that Rothschild and Garcia also revived the Copacabana, in the latest incarnation of the storied nightclub known for its original Mafia backers, New York Yankee brawlers and Barry Manilow kitsch. The club was the setting for one of the most famous scenes in Martin Scorsese's "GoodFellas," when Ray Liotta walks Lorraine Bracco through the kitchen out to the front row and the nice Jewish girl falls in love with the Irish-Sicilian wiseguy.

Rothschild and Garcia reopened the Copa in 2011, and it has hosted top salsa musicians like Willie Colón and generations of sequined dancers.

The original Copacabana debuted in 1940 with mobster Frank Costello as a partner. Despite its name borrowed from the famous Brazilian beach, the club featured Chinese food and was segregated until Harry Belafonte broke the color line in 1950. Now, the Copa hosts live bands, Garcia's classic southern hemisphere dishes and a rooftop dance floor overlooking Times Square.

That's a bit much to pack into kid-friendly Downtown Silver Spring. But Macaroni Grill left a big hole, 7,700 square feet, to be exact, room enough for 180 diners. And here's the thing, that's even bigger than the original AG Kitchen on New York's Upper West Side, which has a 120-seat dining room and a 30-seat lounge.

So there is room enough for Garcia and Rothschild to include a stage and small dance floor that could feature some of the same hot Latin bands that show up at the Copa. I like to think they are planning something more ambitious than a Latin comfort food eatery. Something that will draw the crowds like the original Art Deco Silver Spring Shopping Center and the Silver Theatre did when they opened in 1938.

Perhaps they will create a spot where white, black and Hispanic (somebody has to come up with a way to write that where everyone or nobody is capitalized) revelers could mix more easily than they do as they pass each other strolling down Ellsworth Avenue without making eye contact.

It would be nice if Silver Spring could host the sort of all-colors venue that a small army of development lawyers and zoning functionaries earnestly tried to plan out in a report released last year by the Montgomery County Nighttime Economy Task Force. 

Now would be a good time for the County Council to dust off that document and pass legislation that would give night life entrepreneurs some more flexibility to help mend Montgomery's fractured hipness.

Celebrity Chef Alex Garcia filling Macaroni Grill vacancy in Downtown Silver Spring

By Sonny Goldreich
Celebrity chef Alex Garcia is coming to Downtown Silver Spring, filling the huge vacancy left last year by the departure of Romano's Macaroni Grill with his 180-seat Latin American fusion restaurant AG Kitchen.

Garcia, a native of Cuba, will open his first eatery outside of New York City next year, according to The Peterson Cos., the Fairfax-based firm that owns the mall fronting Georgia Avenue between Colesville Road and Ellsworth Drive.

"This is definitely long-awaited news and we're thrilled," said Laurie Yankowski, Peterson's regional marketing director.

The 7,700-square-foot restaurant's entrance will face the mall's interactive fountain and will feature outdoor seating. But Garcia's arrival will also reanimate the iconic Art Deco front of the mall, where a closed sign now steers Macaroni grill customers to its Gaithersburg and Alexandria locations. The mall, along with the AFI Silver Theatre next door, faced the wrecking ball before preservation activists compelled Montgomery County to save the complex in 1984.

Set to open next Spring, the restaurant will also bring foodie buzz to an area that critics have long complained has offered mostly cookie-cutter food. Along with Macaroni Grill, which closed last November, other major spaces are filled by national franchises Red Lobster and Panera, and locally based Austin Grill and Lebanese Taverna.

AG Kitchen will specialize in American and Latin "comfort classics" and will be similar to Garcia's New York restaurant, according to a Peterson press release. It will his serve signature dishes, including seafood paella and "NYC’s Best Cubano" sandwich.

"The introduction of Alex Garcia’s award-winning Latin cuisine is a win for Washington area foodies," said Kelly Price, Peterson's vice president for retail asset management. "We are particularly delighted to deliver on Silver Spring’s desire for a lively, independent restaurant that reflects the community’s vibe."

Garcia, former host of  “The Melting Pot,” on the Food Network, is considered a leader of the Nuevo Latino cooking movement, and AG Kitchen's menu reflects the influence of Cuban, Caribbean, Brazilian and American palates. He has run numerous menus in New York, including Calle Ocho, Havana Café and the revived Copacabana Supper Club.

Up Georgia Update: Demolition begins at Privacy World in Glenmont to make room for townhouses

By Sonny Goldreich

Workers began demolishing a corner of the aging Privacy World apartments this week next to the Glenmont Metro station, where developers plan to build a townhouse cluster as the first stage of a 1,550-unit mixed-use complex.

The project has been touted as the spark for broader redevelopment along the stretch of Georgia Avenue north of Wheaton, where county officials hope a new sector plan will attract investment in the dilapidated Glenmont Shopping Center and surrounding apartment complexes.

Under a permit issued August 29, three garden apartment buildings and a long-vacant bank site are being leveled at the northeast corner of Glenallan Avenue and Layhill Road. The 9.5-acre site—which includes a wooded lot that abuts a Metro rail storage yard—sits directly across Glenallan Avenue from the Metro, which is the last station on the eastern leg of the Red Line.

A pair of excavator tractors knocked down one apartment building and started work on a second Friday along Layhill Road, just west of the rail yard.

Winchester Homes plans to build 171 four-story townhouses at the corner, including 22 moderately priced dwelling units. Approved first phase construction also allows another 54 townhouses and a six-story, 250-unit apartment building with 4,000 square feet of retail space.

When completed, the new Glenmont Metrocenter complex could occupy 2.5 million square feet of space where the 352-unit Privacy World now stands. If fully built, the 31 acre-complex would include 1,325 multifamily units, 225 townhouses, and 90,000 square feet of commercial space, room enough for an upscale grocery and other retail.

Later construction would include the retail space and three new apartment buildings. Plans call for reserving 14.5 percent of the housing for moderately priced dwelling units.

County planners have been pushing redevelopment of Glenmont since a new sector plan was passed in 1997. It included denser zoning to encourage transit-oriented development next to the Metro station that opened in 1998. The updated sector plan approved this year has been paired with a new enterprise zone that offers businesses state income tax and property tax credits to help create and retain jobs.

But there has been no significant development within a mile of the subway since the Red Line was completed.

The last of the 18 existing Privacy World buildings was completed in the 1960s.

The staged redevelopment of the complex allows for plenty of time for the Glenmont market to adjust to the transformation of Privacy World. According to its website, completion of the last stage of redevelopment will be in 2022.

The new complex will offer as many as 1,550 apartment and townhouses built in six stages over two phases of construction. Developers will preserve 77 existing apartment units while 775 new apartments and townhouses are built in the first phase, according to approved planning documents. The second phase calls for replacing the 77 remaining units and constructing up to 698 new units, for a total of 775 new apartments.

That will allow current tenants to stay in Glenmont. The Privacy World website says "The management will make every effort to offer alternate units in other buildings in the community, whenever possible, for those residents who wish to remain at Privacy World."

County housing agency teams up with Lee for 3-building complex in Silver Spring

By Sonny Goldreich

The county’s Housing Opportunities Commission today approved a plan to increase its stock of affordable housing in downtown Silver Spring, under a proposal to redevelop a pair of its buildings in partnership with Lee Development Group, which will add a third tower offering a mix of low-income and market-rate units.

The proposed Elizabeth Square complex, courtesy Lee Development Group

The preliminary project plan submitted to the county Department of Planning would create a 908-unit, mixed-income complex two blocks from the Metro Red Line station, where the housing agency now owns the 160-unit seniors’ Elizabeth House and the 312-unit mixed-income Alexander House. When the multi-phase Elizabeth Square project is completed, the three buildings will occupy about 771,000 square feet of space, an increase of 314,000 square feet over the existing buildings.

“It really revives what has been a rather quiet corner and makes it an amenity-rich, transit-oriented community,” said HOC housing acquisition manager Christopher Donald. “And it’s important to understand that but for public housing, this would not be happening.”

The new community would transform the blocks bounded by Fenwick Street to the North, Second Avenue to the East, Metro rail lines to the West and Apple Street to the South. The new housing plaza will feature public-use facilities, including a swimming pool and fitness center and Holy Cross health system’s senior source and wellness center.

"Our partnership with Lee Development Group is a first-of-its-kind public/private initiative," Stacy L. Spann, HOC’s executive director, said in a press release. "With Elizabeth Square we’re looking to change the paradigm of how we connect clients to high-quality, amenity-rich housing in Montgomery County, and hopefully elsewhere, as we demonstrate this model can be successful.”

Lee Development brings to the table Fenwick Professional Park, a two-story townhouse-style office complex built in 1953. The office park will be demolished to make room for the new expanded Elizabeth House, ensuring that existing senior tenants will not face the disruption of relocating during construction of their new home, Donald said.

"We joined with HOC for this project because we are confident that Elizabeth Square will elevate the vision for HOC’s affordable housing, while bringing a new community to Silver Spring that will be attractive to retailers, residents and the surrounding neighborhood, at the same time addressing the need for more affordable homes, said Bruce Lee, president of Lee Development.

Construction on the new 277-unit Elizabeth House is expected to start in 2016 and take two years to complete. The existing 160 affordable units will be moved to the new building, and about half of the additional 117 units will be set aside for affordable housing. HOC will own the building and Lee will own the underlying property under a long-term ground lease.

In the second development phase, Lee will demolish the existing Elizabeth House, which was built in 1966, and replace it with a 319-unit, mixed-income building.

Alexander House, which was completed in 1996, will undergo a full renovation and maintain its mix of units, with 40 percent of its apartments set aside for low-income renters.
Elizabeth Square is the latest in a series of HOC redevelopments of aging properties with private partners.

“The strongest, most sustainable affordable housing deals—those that don’t need deep subsidies—are mixed income,” Donald said. “That’s best practice in affordable housing.”

The housing agency owns or manages 6,998 units and is on an aggressive campaign to add more through redevelopment with private partners. Backed by a $246.9 million budget, the HOC has positioned itself as a real estate development firm.

In the past year, the agency has moved toward a major expansion of affordable housing not just in the Georgia Avenue corridor but in expensive areas of the county where land costs typically put neighborhoods out of reach for anyone not making an upper-bracket income.

In July, the HOC won sketch plan approval from the county Planning Board to develop 329 new apartments and townhouses in Chevy Chase, which will replace 68 garden-style apartments owned by the agency. The project involves a deal with developer EYA of Bethesda, which bought a portion of the site to build the townhouses, netting $19-24 million for the housing commission.

Now, the agency is seeking higher density for its 157-unit Barclay apartment building to position it for redevelopment as part of the new Bethesda Central Business District master plan that the county is writing.