Posts Tagged ‘Constantine Stavropoulos’
14th and T: Room & Board Speaks Edition
The phone calls, the e-mails, the anonymous comments on this very blog---they have all been heard, read, and registered by the execs at Room & Board, the furniture store that, despite it all, is still planning to move into 1840 14th St. NW.
But for all of the 'hood's lovers of diners and comedy clubs and local business owners, who are almost certainly not moving into 1840 14th St. NW, Room & Board is making promises. The company promises to be a good neighbor, hire people on salary with good bennies (rather than on commission), and restore the building into the showplace it once was.
In two phone calls, one from a PR rep who did not want to be named and one conference call with that rep, Chief Financial Officer Mark Miller, and Communications Director Jill Linville, the Room & Board folks confirmed they are deep into their D.C. plans and had been looking for the right spot for about two years.
Miller, who has been the most involved in the process, says the company considered sites in Tysons Corner, Rockville, Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Georgetown, and "about 25 other locations," including the old Central Union Mission building at 14th and R, before settling on the former Church of the Rapture at 14th and T.
14th and T: Reality Edition
Commenters have beeen tearing it up over at 14th and T: The Good News, Bad News Edition, many of them in support of Diner/Tryst/Open City owner Constantine Stavropoulos and comedy club impresario John Xereas, who had hoped---with the help of Dave Chappelle and others---to develop local businesses inside the former Church of the Reformer. That plan now looks even more like a dream deferred to Minneapolis-based furniture outfit Room & Board.
Blame the "big-box mentality" if you like, but here's what really happened, according to Wayne Dickson, who, as principal partner at Blake Dickson Real Estate Services, represents the owners of the building: "Whoever writes the first check gets the space. That's the beginning and the end of the story....They [the local business owners] didn't have the money and had no assurance they could get the money."
Dickson is not unsympathetic to Stavropoulos and John X. He was the one who helped Stavropoulos move into Woodley Park in what is now Open City. They're friends and he says he has high esteem for both men. But that doesn't mean Four Points, his clients and the owners of the building, are making a bad decision.
