:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tronc/TB7XDBMUOJDNLI2KFCCIAHUJBI.jpg)
Granby Station has been a slow disappearing act.
Nearly two years ago, lead partners Robert and Alvin Barnuevo announced ambitious plans to raise the profile of food in downtown Norfolk: a 10,000-square-foot, 13-vendor food hall with communal seating, a cocktail bar, a bakery, and a global selection of bites that ranged from modern Filipino to Mexican street food.
Construction commenced quickly. The Granby Station food hall was projected to open in summer 2019, in a prominent city-owned space at 103 and 111 Granby St. within a stone’s throw of The Main hotel.
Partners installed a festive mural proclaiming “Norfolk’s 1st food hall” and a LOVE sculpture that was quickly festooned with inscribed locks proclaiming bonds that would last forever.
A roster of interesting chefs signed on to serve their food: Charu Patel of adventurous Indian chaat house Tamarind. Creole chef Tasha Roberts. Multiple chefs, from multiple incarnations of Maymar Filipino restaurants. Cuban-food chef Brenda Cardoso, who has since opened brick-and-mortar restaurant Cohiba in Chesapeake.
But two years later, after stalled construction and a worldwide pandemic, there is no food hall on Granby Street.
And as of late January, the space is available for lease.
The Granby Station partners are still signed to a lease with the city. When contacted for comment, Robert Barnuevo referred the newspaper to S.L. Nusbaum Realty Co. vice president Chris Zarpas, whom partners enlisted to help sublease the half-finished space to a new tenant. With renewal options, the lease could extend to 14 years.
Zarpas said the Granby Station partners had decided to focus on other priorities.
Alvin Barnuevo runs multiple restaurant projects in the D.C. area. And in July 2020, some of the same partners from Granby Station opened another massive project in Virginia Beach, a 27,000-square-foot roller rink and fun center called Sk8 House that The Pilot described as “an indoor day-carnival, with beer for parents.”
In May 2020, Robert Barnuevo told the newspaper that progress had been halted on Granby Station since late 2019, a victim to both construction delays and unanticipated renovations needed to the space.
The food hall was still moving forward, he said at the time, once they found new building contractors.
But the partners had a pressing problem to solve: How do they open a busy, multi-vendor food hall with communal seating during a coronavirus pandemic that makes tight-quartered gathering spaces seem like a threat?
“Because of this pandemic, we’re having to rethink a lot of things,” Barnuevo said in May. “In the beginning, the idea was bringing people together through the power of food. It’s centered on food and people sitting in close quarters. Now we’d have to kind of imagine and reconfigure how we can have that, to where we’re not putting people in harm’s way when it comes to them sitting and interacting.”
Inside Business
Now, it appears, the food hall will not be moving forward.
Zarpas is optimistic about bringing another ambitious project to the space, which already has six of its kitchen hood systems installed.
Despite the struggles of businesses during the pandemic, he said, real estate momentum has not slowed in high-density areas. Few downtown Norfolk spaces have remained fallow for long, even as some restaurants have closed during the pandemic.
“One interesting thing about the impact of COVID-19 on local retail is this,” he said. “For every restaurant that closed in Hampton Roads, there were two to three prospective tenants waiting to take the space. I must have got a half-dozen email blasts from brokers saying ‘second generation restaurant space wanted.’”
Zarpas rattled off the possibilities: A drug store with a drive-through in the alleyway. A small urban grocery store with multiple food vendors. An urban WAWA. A ghost kitchen commissary with multiple restaurant concepts. A brewery or cidery.
“Most chefs I’ve encountered are artists. They’ve always got at least two ideas in their back pocket, waiting for an opportunity,” he said. “I think this is an extraordinary opportunity for somebody to take at least some of the space.”
Matthew Korfhage, 757-446-2318, matthew.korfhage@pilotonline.com