By Ian Thompson
SUISUN CITY - Suisun City may get a waterfront restaurant and banquet room - but Main Street West Partners, Old Town's master developer, is not saying who.
"We hope to bring a lot of new people in," said Mike Rice of Main Street West of what he plans to be an upscale steak and seafood restaurant. "It will be a draw of significance."
Just who the restaurant will be, Rice expects to announce as soon as the negotiations are finished and the construction is started.
"They have not disclosed the name yet," Suisun City Assistant Planner John Kearns said of the application that was submitted in late September.
The Suisun City Planning Commissioners gave the project their unanimous approval Tuesday with only minor changes. Some said they were glad to see a banquet facility coming downtown.
This could fit in with plans to get a 102-room, limited-service hotel built between One Harbor Center and Driftwood Drive. The hotel's application is now under review and could go before the Planning Commission in late February or early March.
The proposed restaurant site is the same one where Winters-based Buckhorn Restaurant wanted to build a 5,685-square-foot restaurant back in 2000. But it pulled out in favor of building in Napa.
Main Street West wants to construct a two-story building that would house a 4,060-square-foot restaurant on the ground floor and a 3,616-square-foot banquet room on the top floor.
The building will have the same appearance as the Athenian Grill to the south and the Miller-Sorg building to the west.
"This is will be our first waterfront restaurant that we are doing," Rice said. "Our hope is that it will include a banquet facility that will be used for weddings and reunions."
The restaurant proposal now goes to the Suisun City Redevelopment Agency for approval.
If everything goes according to plan, construction will start in spring 2007 and the eatery will open in time for the holiday season next year.
This is the second project Main Street West has proposed since it became the Old Town area's master developer last year.
In late September, Main Street West broke ground on Harbor Plaza, one of two proposed mixed-use buildings flanking Solano Street on Main Street's east side.
Unforeseen problems with utilities slowed work, but once those are resolved, it will continue, Rice said.
Reach Ian Thompson at 427-6976 or at ithompson@dailyrepublic.net.
