Airport Rules Threaten Little Italy Restaurant
| 8 a.m. Oct. 27, 2015
When
new airport safety regulations curbing future development went into effect last
year, Little Italy leaders immediately raised concerns that the neighborhood’s
burgeoning growth would be jeopardized.
Now those new
restrictions will be put to the test as one of San Diego’s more prolific
restaurateurs seeks to redevelop the decades-old Nelson Photo building on India
Street into a two-story dining destination with rooftop seating. The effect of
the safety rules would be to significantly limit the number of people who could
dine there, making the restaurant project financially impractical.
CH Projects co-owner Arsalun Tafazoli said the still
unnamed project — its fourth in Little Italy — will be the company’s biggest
yet, exceeding last year’s Ironside Fish & Oyster restaurant. That too is
housed in an older Little Italy structure.
Tafazoli, who expects
that CH will be investing $2.5 million in the new development, had hoped to
open by next June, although now that target may be extended.
It will join the many
other buzz-worthy restaurants that have come to Little Italy in the last year
and a half, among them Juniper & Ivy, Kettner Exchange and more recently,
Mexican celebrity chef Javier Plascencia’s Bracero.
“I’m really excited to
push the neighborhood forward, and this is an iconic corner in Little Italy,”
said Tafazoli, who noted that the Nelson Photo landlord had approached his
company about locating there as the lease term was nearing its end. “Since our
first restaurant, Craft and Commerce, opened almost six years ago, it’s pretty
amazing to see the culture that’s developed in Little Italy. It’s become this
culinary hub, so I’m banking on getting in front of public officials and hoping
common sense prevails.”
At issue is the maximum
number of diners and bar goers who can be inside what would be an
8,500-square-foot building, which has been occupied by Nelson Photo since the
1970s. The retail operation, which is closing this week, is relocating to Point
Loma because its lease was not renewed by the property owner.
The San Diego Regional
Airport Authority concluded that the restaurant project, which is designed to
seat more than 130 people, is incompatible with the new safety regulations,
which were implemented as a way to ensure that fewer people will be vulnerable
to injury and death should there be a plane crash. Tafazoli said that to
comply, his restaurant could serve no more than 80 diners.
CH Projects has the
option of going to the San Diego City Council to ask that it overrule the
Airport Authority decision, said Brad Richter of Civic San Diego, the city’s
downtown development review arm. A two-thirds majority vote is needed. CH
intends to do so, Tafazoli said.
While the design of the
project is still evolving, Tafazoli said his current plans are for a more
upscale dining concept, complemented by a retail store that would sell gourmet
food items. The dining area would be on the second level, while the kitchen and
bar would occupy the ground floor, he said.
“We’re still weighing
the kind of food we’d have. The conversation is shifting daily,” said Tafazoli.
“We want something more elevated and avant garde, so how the space dynamic
fleshes out will dictate the concept.”
Overseeing the design of
the restaurant space is Paul Basile of Basile Studio, whose eclectic style is
seen in many of the group’s projects, including Ironside. His imprimatur will
also be on a major remodel of Craft & Commerce, which is in the midst of a
$1.8 million redo that will expand the 2,500-square-foot space to 3,600 square
feet and incorporate a second dining concept. Currently closed, it is expected
to reopen in February.
Marco Li Mandri, chief
executive of the Little Italy Association, called the Airport Authority’s new
regulations “idiotic” and vowed to fight any future rulings that threaten to
interfere with continued residential and commercial development in the popular
downtown district.
“How does the Airport
Authority come up with rules to lower density for retail and restaurants and
residential when there are 50,000 people a day sitting in Terminals 1 and 2,”
he said. “If there’s any potential danger, that’s where it is.
“While we are pretty
close to reaching a saturation point with restaurants, we’re absolutely in
favor of this project.”
Meanwhile, Nelson Photo
will reopen Friday at its Point Loma location at 3625 Midway Drive in the Point
Loma Plaza center.
“It's exciting we’re
getting a new space that’s beautiful but it will but sad leaving here because
we’ve always been the downtown camera store,” said Nelson Photo co-owner Larry
Kuntz, who purchased the business in 2001 with his wife, Nancy. “But it’s just
time for us to go and it will be easier for our customers because we will have
plenty of parking.”
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