Bloomingdale Firehouse Update

The old Bloomingdale Firehouse is located at 1626 North Capitol Street, NW. I was happy to see some improvements when I walked by last weekend. You can see what it used to look like here. And in really good timing a reader commented earlier today:

“I attended the Bloomingdale ANC meeting last night were the developers of the Firehouse were there to pitch their alcohol license and said the first floor restaurant will be open for July 4th and the second floor tavern will be open by Aug 1, and the third floor would come after that. Go Bloomingdale!!!!!”

Though I thought it was interesting that another reader commented a dissenting opinion a couple days ago. He wrote:

“I live on Quincy near the firehouse and I don’t (a) want a gigantic late night restaurant right on top of me, and (b) don’t think one would succeed.

Let’s take Saint Ex, for example, which is a restaurant on a corner. It’s decent sized and it probably does a good business. But what happens if you were to triple the size of it and put it in an area that with way less street parking and way less foot traffic. I’d say it’s a bad bet.

Also, given what it took for the alcohol approvals at Big Bear, would it take any less to get a license for that spot? I’m not being facetious. Does someone know?

Anyway, when I saw the construction, I thought “condos.” But that was before I saw this stuff about the blight designation. Maybe the best thing for him is to do the minimum amount of work to hold onto the space until the neighborhood can sustain a restaurant that size–if that is what he really wants.”

More updates as they become available.