Capitol View's Cafe Phillips Changes Name

Over the weekend, storefront signage was changed at the corner of 3rd and E streets for Café Phillips deli, which is now known as Sandwiches by Phillip. Three of the five former Café Phillips locations across the city have made the switch to Sandwiches by Phillip. The 3rd and E Street location opened in June 2011 on the ground floor of the Capitol View office building. The other retailer in the building is Pizza Autentica, which also opened in 2011.

Old Cafe Phillips sign.

Cafe Phillips Grand Opening

  

Today was the grand opening of Cafe Phillips, located at the Capitol View office building at the corner of 3rd and E Street. This follows the opening last month of Pizza Autentica next door. These two retail spaces were vacant for several years after the Capitol View delivered, but as the building and Patriots Plaza filled up with office tenants, the retail space garnered more interest. The Southwest restaurant is the 8th one in the local chain to open. There was a clown giving out coupons this morning which are valid until June 24. Cafe Phillips is open Monday - Friday from 7am - 4pm; breakfast is served until 10:30am and lunch until 4pm. Some of the breakfast items served include: bagels, muffins, scones, sandwiches, omelets, and burritos.  Lunch items include sandwiches, salads, soups, and chili. Below are some additional photos from the opening.



Here is some of the seating available.

This is Mr. Yun (the owner) behind the coffee bar.



I told you there was a clown!



A Few Quick Items: Wharf Hotel, Earth Day Clean-Up, Another Pizza Autentica Opens, Centennial Cherry Blossom Festival

- PR Newswire brings news that the Hoffman-Madison Waterfront team has selected Humboldt Hospitality to advise them on the sale or joint venture of their hotel site for phase one of The Wharf. The hotel is planned as a luxury, full service, four-star/diamond facility and will face the Washington Channel, adjacent to the future home of The Graduate School USA at 9th Street and Maine Avenue.

- According to the SW Library Playground Project blog, the group will be holding a spring clean-up of the proposed site for a new playground on Earth Day, April 23rd from 11am-1pm.  Everyone is welcome to come and help with the clean-up.  Items that are needed include work gloves and rakes, however, bags will be provided. The playground site is located at 3rd & I Street, next to the Southwest Library, which itself will be renovated over the next few years.

- Last Thursday, the second Pizza Autentica in Southwest opened on the ground floor of Capitol View, an office building at 425 3rd Street.  The new restaurant is open seven days a week (Monday - Friday from 7am-10pm and weekends from 11am-10pm). In addition to pizza, stromboli, salads and paninis, the restaurant serves breakfast on weekdays and also has gelato.

- Get ready for an extended cherry blossom festival...the National Cherry Blossom Festival organizers have announced that the centennial celebration of the gifting of cherry trees to DC by Japan will take place next year and the normal two-week festival will last five weeks. Next year's festival will run from March 20 - April 27, 2012.

Above rendering courtesy of Hoffman-Madison Waterfront.

Local Chain Cafe Phillips to Open Deli at Capitol View

According to an article in Capital Business, a Cafe Phillips deli will be opening at the ground floor of the Capitol View office building. The deli will join Pizza Autentica at the 425 E Street building, whose planned opening was announced in July. Cafe Phillips serves breakfast and lunch during the work week and the Capitol View location would be the chain's eighth location in DC. From the article:

Locating in densely populated office corridors may mean more business, but it also means more competition. Most of [owner Phillip] Yun's delis are a stone's throw away from a Cosi or Subway. But he gladly plays David to the Goliaths, betting customers will like the quality of his product, he said. His piled-high subs have gained him a pretty loyal following.

Breakfast menu items include bagels, muffins, scones, breakfast sandwiches and oatmeal. For lunch, there are sandwiches, soups, salads, and chili. A full menu is available on their website. Cafe Phillips is scheduled to open in May.

Pizza Autentica Coming to Capitol View

A second Pizza Autentica will be making its way to The Little Quadrant That Could according to the Washington Business Journal (subscribers only). One of the newest additions to the growing Pizza Autentica empire will open at the Capitol View office building on 425 3rd Street. At the L'Enfant Plaza Pizza Autentica location, lines are usually out the door during lunch hour, which demonstrates the dearth of restaurants in the area for workers (and residents), especially since the renovation of the Promenade at L'Enfant Plaza began late last year. It would have been nice if restaurateur Hakan Ilhan opened one of his other concepts instead of another Pizza Autentica (like Einstein Brothers Bagels, Gelatoria Dolce Vita, or Cafe Cantina), but beggars can't be choosers, I guess. There's no word yet whether the new Pizza Autentica will serve beer (like the Ballston location), whether it will stay open late, have indoor/outdoor seating, or when it will open. I'll let you know once I find out these details. There's still retail space available at Capitol View, which opened in 2008 and has slowly, but surely signed leases with office tenants. On the project website of The Rappaport Companies, it states that the retail spots at Capitol View are ideal for food or financial services. In addition to office lease signings at Capitol View, Patriots Plaza has been attracting tenants as well, so it was inevitable that a restaurant would open at 425 3rd Street. Hopefully a second restaurant will make an announcement soon.

All You Need is Gov...Patriots Plaza Nabs USDA

The Washington Business Journal reports today that the US Department of Agriculture will occupy most of the phase III building of Patriots Plaza. The GSA signed a lease on behalf of the agency for 330,000 SF, which accounts for about 87% of the building. From the WBJ article:

The General Services Administration negotiated and signed the deal on behalf of USDA, which is consolidating five other locations throughout the District and Northern Virginia. Patriots Plaza III was completed in September — USDA will begin moving into the building in December 2010.

The phase I building is fully leased to the feds while Patriots Plaza II is still without tenants, so with the USDA announcement, the 980,000+ SF three-building LEED-Silver certified complex is now 62% leased. Since the tenant is the federal government, it’s highly doubtful that ground floor retail will move into Patriots Plaza, as the developers mentioned as a possibility when they were vying for the Engine 13 RFP in February. However, this announcement may help get a restaurant to move into the ground floor of Capitol View, which is down the block from Patriots Plaza on D Street. Above is a photo of the phase III building taken last month.

Madison Courts Restauranteurs

Jennifer Price, a broker with Madison Retail Group, tells Southwest...TLQTC that they are looking to bring a sushi restaurant to the ground floor of the Capitol View office building and a Cactus Cantina or matchbox-like establishment to The Portals. I think any of these restaurants would be a welcome addition to the food scene here, since an overwhelming majority of readers voted in our September survey that what they liked least about Southwest was the lack of retail/restaurants. What types of restaurants would you like to see in Southwest? Feel free to opine in the comments section and/or participate in the survey on the sidebar.

Tenant Delays Move to Capitol View

According to an article in this week's Washington Business Journal (subscribers only), Roll Call Group signed a letter of intent in February to move to Capitol View, the new office building at the corner of 3rd & E Street, near the Federal Center SW Metro. However, since Roll Call Group announced its purchase of Congressional Quarterly Inc., the company has decided to reevaluate its space needs as it decides how many employees it will have once the takeover is complete. Signed tenants at Capitol View include the Association of American Railroads and lobbyists for Disney, but about 85% of the building remains vacant, as reported back in March.

Sidewalk at Patriots Plaza Reopens

Construction is wrapping up at phases II & III of Patriots Plaza, the massive office building complex being built by Trammell Crow. Last week, crews were installing curbs and the sidewalk in front of the new buildings. Today, the sidewalk along the north side of the 3oo block of D Street was reopened to pedestrians. While the entire sidewalk isn't complete yet, enough of it has been put in place that pedestrians can now walk by safely. While no tenants have been lined up yet at phases II & III of Patriots Plaza, I saw moving vans over the weekend at nearby Capitol View, the office building at the corner of 3rd & D Street, presumably for the Association of American Railroads (AAR), which is scheduled to move into the space in September, as Southwest...TLQTC posted back in March. Above is a photo of the entrance plaza to the phase II & III buildings, taken from D Street. The entrance to the phase I building is at far left, behind the tree.

Update: Below are some more updated photos of Patriots Plaza.

(Left) Here is a photo of the phase II building. Follow this link to a post from December to see what the site looked like as the building rose from the ground. The phase II building has frontage on D Street and is across the street from NASA headquarters.

(Right) Here is a view of the reopened sidewalk along D Street, looking east from Patriots Plaza to the Marriott Residence Inn next door.

(Left) Most of the phase III building fronts 4th Street. The sidewalk in front of the phase III building remains closed as construction appears to be less further along on this side than on D Street. When Trammell Crow was in the running for building the new Engine 13, a representative from the developer stated at the community meeting in February that there was a possibility that portions of phase II & III of Patriots Plaza could have ground floor retail space. It depended on the needs of the tenant. However, to me, the design of the buildings don't look like ground level retail could be accommodated, at least publicly accessible retail.

Non-GSA Tenants Moving to SW...Welcome!

The WBJ reports today that the Association of American Railroads (AAR) will lease 33,619 SF of space at Capitol View, a 317,000 SF office building that delivered in early 2008. I guess it's fitting that AAR's office may have a view of the Amtrak and freight trains that pass next to Capitol View, since this association represents the interests of both groups up on the Hill. In addition to AAR, a lobbying firm and a third tenant will make 425 3rd Street 15% occupied. Clark developed and local architect Shalom Baranes designed Capitol View, billed as a trophy class A office building with views of...you guessed it...the Capitol. GSA typically doesn't move into trophy buildings, and since Southwest has a reputation of attracting government agencies, it must have been especially difficult to find non-government tenants. Now that the building will no longer be empty, maybe some of the ground-level retail space can get leased! (The above photo of the empty ground-level retail space at Capitol View was taken in June 2008)

Update: In Wednesday's Real Estate BizNow, it states that lobbyists for Disney (zippity-do-da!) is one of the tenants that will move into Capitol View this fall.

Two Sites Made Available by the DC Government

According to this article from the Washington Business Journal, the DC Government is soliciting development proposals for two sites (one at the SW corner of 4th Street & E Street and the other at the SW corner of 6th Street & School Street). The 4th Street site is a vacant lot while the other houses a fire station. A new firehouse must be part of the design for one of the parcels, or in the vicinity of the sites. While there are no specifications of what must be built there besides the fire station, that area of the neighborhood is dominated by office buildings, so I would imagine whatever is proposed will be more of the same - unimaginative office buildings with a sandwich shop or drycleaners as ground-floor retail. However, there are several office buildings either under construction or vacant near the sites, including Patriots Plaza, Capitol View, and Constitution Center, so who knows when anything would get built on these sites. At least the 4th Street site could support a sit-down restaurant on the ground floor. There are hundreds, if not thousands of workers nearby - NASA is across the street, the new forensics lab will be built across the street, as well as other existing federal tenants nearby. There are also residents as close as a block away who are yearning for more retail options in the neighborhood.