Nothing For Dinner

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.

Despite warnings from contractors that the improvements would be expensive, she pressed on. "Al was very supportive of me and my business plan," she says. But nothing got done. "For the most part, the same four or five people sat around that table for a year and a half."

In 2001, a Bank of America representative came to talk about financing strategies. Moore says the bank told her it would approve her for a $100,000 loan.

But lease negotiations with the JDRC, which lasted from July to November of last year, killed the whole deal. Fleming warned her that the price per square foot was still being worked out but could be anywhere from $8 to $14. After September 11 left the economy in tatters, Moore figured the JDRC would want to negotiate. "This is a blighted area," Moore remembers thinking. "And business is down here. It won't be $14 [a square foot]."

It was $14. Moore's advisors told her she should be paying $10 a square foot for her 4,400-square-foot space. Fleming wouldn't budge.

She eventually offered Fleming $12 a square foot. He said no. He granted her some concessions on payment schedules and three months' free rent for the time it would take to finish her space. But her attorney and a commercial real estate advisor told her she should have gotten six months or more. Moore says she was "not doing hand flips about three months."

After trying to hash out a deal in December, Moore sent Fleming a letter indicating that if they couldn't come to terms on the lease price, she would have to bow out.

Fleming doesn't like ultimatums. He never responded. He says he had "bent over backward" to help Moore. "Her letter just rubbed me the wrong way," he says.

"I had a great relationship," says Moore. "I'm surprised he was willing to just let me walk out the door. The darn place is empty, and they're not getting a dime. It's hard to imagine they couldn't do something."

Tony Privitieri, whose local holdings include warehouses, office buildings and strip malls, contacted Fleming last summer about courting the federal Social Security Administration to move into the Attucks School, a stout red-brick building at the southeastern corner of 18th and Woodland, the eastern edge of the jazz district. Privitieri's plan was to buy the building and renovate it; he says he had been in contact with a government rep who was interested.

"When you let the property owner know the prospective tenant is the federal government, they bend over backwards," Privitieri says. And Bond Faulwell, deputy regional administrator for the General Services Administration, which scouts for federal office space, notes that the government favors offers to move into historic buildings. But Privitieri could never get a sit-down meeting with Fleming.

"He came at me like he's a developer," says Fleming, adding that Privitieri acted as if the JDRC didn't know what it was doing and needed to turn the building over to Privitieri. He says Privitieri called just as he was trying to move the JDRC office from the Black Chamber of Commerce building to the Lincoln Building and preparing for a vacation. "He didn't come at me like, 'Let's sit down and talk.' If he'd have been a serious developer, he'd have been back."

"It don't take a rocket scientist to figure out he ain't doing jack shit," counters Privitieri. "Something's wrong there."

Myra Harper also wanted to start a restaurant in the district. "I felt that would be a wonderful place," she says. "I still feel it could be pretty successful."

Harper is an account executive for a health benefits agency. Four years ago, she envisioned a health-food restaurant with a smoothie bar. She submitted her plan and began to work with the JDRC. A bank had agreed to lend her a third of the startup costs, the JDRC would front a third, and she would put up the rest.