Michael Schwartz has signed on to open a seasonal nightclub and another location of Flip Side, a Hudson burger restaurant where he is a partner. The restaurant could be joined by three other eateries on West 10th Street and several other waterfront venues.
Clik here to view.
View full sizeThe first phase of the Flats East Bank project will include an outdoor nightclub launched by Michael Schwartz, a partner in the Flip Side burger restaurant that is planning a location on West 10th Street. A member of the development team held several meetings in Las Vegas this week with potential operators of two additional waterfront clubs. This rendering shows a potential view of the waterfront entertainment area, with placeholders for the club names.CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The developers of the Flats East Bank project have inked a deal with a local burger joint, lined up prospects for a Mexican restaurant and a steakhouse, and recruited a local operator to open an outdoor nightclub along the Cuyahoga River.
Michael Schwartz has signed on to open a seasonal nightclub and another location of Flip Side, a Hudson burger restaurant where he is a partner. The restaurant could be joined by three other eateries on West 10th Street and several other waterfront venues.
Randy Ruttenberg, a principal with Fairmount Properties, declined to identify those potential tenants during an interview at a major retail conference in Las Vegas this week. But he said his team is in "advanced negotiations" to land the Mexican restaurant, which would be similar to the funky Pink Taco in Los Angeles, and an Italian-influenced steakhouse run by a well-known local chef.
Scott Wolstein, who is developing the East Bank project with his mother, Iris, and Fairmount Properties, said recently that plans are being accelerated for nightclubs and restaurants by the river.
"I decided to try to get that done earlier than we had anticipated," he said. "If we can do it, I'd like to have it done by next summer."
Construction workers hope to pour the first concrete some time next week for the $275 million first phase of the project that includes an office building and a hotel.
The Wolstein Group and Fairmount Properties already are exploring options for 50,000 square feet of retail in the second phase of the project, which also would involve housing -- apartments designed for eventual conversion to condos, built 150 or so at a time. The first phase is scheduled to open in 2013 and includes offices for accounting firm Ernst & Young.
In 2007, before the economy crumbled and delayed the Flats project, the developers announced a deal with Bernie Kosar to open a steakhouse there. But Kosar's steakhouse in Florida closed, and the former Browns quarterback filed for bankruptcy protection in 2009. Now Fairmount Properties is searching for new clubs and restaurants that might draw traffic from across the region.
One of those will be a seasonal, waterfront club operated by Schwartz, a principal in Flip Side with Shawn and Tiffany Monday and a partner in a company that has owned or designed several clubs in the Warehouse District and Atlanta.
The Flats club, which does not have a name yet, will be a 20,000 square foot outdoor venue, framed by fabric drapes. Schwartz said he wants to bring local and international DJs to perform in a musical and theatrical space that has "a South Beach feel with a Vegas attitude."
During the Las Vegas convention, Ruttenberg and his team met with seven national restaurant groups to discuss other waterfront venues and space in the project's second phase. They are working on a deal for a two-story restaurant and club with an operator who has facilities in Cincinnati and Columbus.
And the developers are talking to a potential operator for a House of Blues-style venue, focused on music that would appeal to a Baby Boomer crowd.
"It will be necessary for both the retail and the restaurant tenants to be unique and not only serve the Flats and the surrounding community but draw much more regionally, as the Flats has always been able to do," Ruttenberg said. "But this time, and this is important, we will be drawing people not with a collection of bars but a collection of unique shopping and dining destinations."