Nothing For Dinner

Fleming had devised a difficult process for business owners who sought financial aid from the JDRC. Entrepreneurs with viable business plans had to come up with their own money for a third of their projects. They had to secure a bank loan for another third. Then they had to get a loan approval from the JDRC for the last third.

But that was only the beginning. Once a would-be restaurateur had signed a lease, he had to contract a whole new round of construction. The landlord of a commercial space usually puts up the building but leaves the interior spaces a "white box" -- just the walls, ceiling and floor. The tenant then pays to install the plumbing, wiring and ventilation systems to suit his specific needs.

At 18th and Vine, though, tenants have to put in the floor and ceiling, too. "It's concrete above you, concrete below," says Terri Moore, another could-have-been 18th and Vine restaurant owner. For making the improvements, tenants could expect a rebate of $15 a square foot -- not enough to make up for the district's high rents.

Jerry Gaines, food and beverage specialist for Block and Company Real Estate, explains that commercial real estate comes in two categories: Class A spaces are on major streets and offer excellent exposure; Class B spaces are set back from main thoroughfares. The average Class A space in metro Kansas City leases for $16.80 a square foot. Class B spaces average $11 a square foot.

Until businesses open and customers start spending money, Gaines considers commercial space at 18th and Vine strictly Class B. He thinks the JDRC's asking price of $14 a square foot might explain why getting businesses on the block has been so tough. "They're going to have to give good deals to get prospects in there," he says. "They're not going to get that kind of price. They're going to have to sell for a hell of a lower rate to get people in there."

Tell that to the people who have tried to get in there.

We're hustlers," says John DiCapo. "Maybe they need to get a hustler to run that operation. It'd probably be a good idea to get the local realtors, who are involved in this area, people who know Kansas City. If the city allowed them to lease that space, it would be full by now."

DiCapo has food in his blood. His mother operated a drive-in restaurant at 27th and Van Brunt from 1968 to 1976, and his father owned and operated the Italian Gardens restaurant downtown for more than 45 years. DiCapo himself spent 25 years at Italian Gardens, ran a successful country-and-western bar in Overland Park in the early '80s, and operated a profitable Northeast neighborhood liquor store. In April 2000 his company, DiCapo Foods, started turning out tamales, and DiCapo started thinking about selling them, along with chili, on 18th and Vine.

"They need people like me," he says. "I come from a family background. We've been in business 75 years downtown. We've outlasted everybody. We know how to do business."

DiCapo attended meetings in January 2001 but quickly became discouraged when they began late, sometimes by as much as half an hour. "I'm a businessman. When I tell you I'm going to be someplace, you can pretty much bank on it," he says. To make matters worse, the meetings were largely unproductive. "We'd ask the same questions every month, and we never got a straight answer because Al didn't know," DiCapo says.

DiCapo says he was supposed to open last August. Then in September. Then in October. Fleming gave him a lease, but it contained no specific clauses about the time or duration of the contract. "They wanted you to fill in the blanks. But you can't fill in the blanks, because you don't have the space done," he says.

He didn't sign it. After ninety days passed without a word from Fleming, in January of this year DiCapo decided he was through.

"If they're not calling me, I don't need to call them."

Fleming argues that DiCapo bogged down the meetings with redundant questions and that his "financials are terrible." "He didn't fulfill some of the requirements," Fleming says.

DiCapo admits that his resources for the project were probably limited, but says, "I've been undercapitalized my whole life, and I still get things done." DiCapo adds that everyone interested in opening at 18th and Vine was probably undercapitalized. "If we had a lot of money, we wouldn't be going to 18th and Vine," he says. "We'd be going to 119th and Metcalf, where all the people are. You're taking a hell of a risk going down there."

Terri Moore, a manager at a mutual funds company, began attending the monthly meetings in November 1999. She'd been thinking about starting a restaurant for years. Like the others, Moore saw 18th and Vine as a good opportunity, although she had no restaurant experience.

Moore submitted a preliminary business plan in February 2000. She was in for many surprises.

The first was the unexpected cost of additional construction. Realizing that she would have to install her own walls and floors, she recalculated her costs. The difference was dramatic. She had figured she could be up and running for less than $75,000, but it now looked more like $300,000.