Collegiate Times

Chipotle

After facing lengthy construction delays, the Blacksburg opening of popular restaurant chain Chipotle is back on track.

Victor Dritselis, a spokesman for Southview Development, which owns and manages the building that will house Chipotle, said he hopes the restaurant will open between April and June.

The restaurant will take up three storefronts of the building lining the 300 block of North Main Street, situating the franchise between downtown restaurants Hokie House and The Cellar Restaurant, and within earshot of rival Tex-Mex eatery Moe’s Southwest Grill.

Delays for the restaurant’s opening came in renovating the building’s architecture to meet the franchise’s design preferences and the town building code. The structure was originally built in the 1940s.

“Once we submitted the plans to the town, they had a few issues they wanted us to revise,” Dritselis said.

Dritselis said some of the problems were lowering the height of the building’s ground floor and creating appropriate entrances and exits.

The complications pushed the restaurant’s opening back from its intended debut in late 2009. One of the first tasks for construction crews was combining the three storefronts into one space.

“They demolished just about everything inside up to the walls,” said Cathy Cook, building official for the town of Blacksburg’s planning and building office.

Currently, work is being done to improve the building’s foundation.

Brandy Stanfill, a barber at neighboring Modern Barber Shop, said she hopes the new business will bring customers to her shop.

“We’d never heard about (Chipotle) until they talked about it coming here,” Stanfill said. “It should generate more business for us.”

Despite her enthusiasm, Stanfill admitted parking could become a problem.

“Everybody’s going to be fighting over parking,” Stanfill said. “Thank goodness we have our own parking places.”

In addition to the Chipotle restaurant, the building will house three upscale apartments, along with another commercial space on the building’s ground level. The back of the building will feature a patio space for the lower commercial space underneath a balcony that will be used by Chipotle.

The new Chipotle and the subsequent renovations have given new life to a building known as “the hobby shop building.”

“They’ll basically have a brand new building when they’re done,” Cook said. “It’s a perfect example of rehabbing a building and bringing it back to life.”

Ted Koebel, program chair and professor in the Department of Urban Affairs and Planning, said that older buildings create a “sense of place” for communities, and repurposing these older buildings for modern use is critical to community growth.

“They (older buildings) need to be reprogrammed, they need to be brought back to some contemporary function,” Koebel said.

Cook said these upgrades are necessary to draw new tenants and businesses.

“It keeps the downtown flowing,” Cook said. “We don’t want our buildings to be ghost towns.”

Sue Drzal, administrative director of merchant association Downtown Blacksburg Inc., said the new business could bring increased foot traffic to its neighbors.

“Any time people come down to check out a new restaurant, they might also go and check out some of the other retail options,” Drzal said. “When you have a new business it’ll bring benefits to the businesses around them.”

Dritselis said he looked forward to getting the Chipotle ready.

“It should be a well received business in downtown Blacksburg,” Dritselis said.