WILMINGTON — Chef Vivian Howard’s new restaurant, Benny’s Big Time Pizzeria, will anchor a major commercial development by Greenfield Lake. Local favorites The Fortunate Glass and the pastry chef from Pinpoint are also opening new locations. Developers hope the development will become a new facet of Wilmington’s downtown.
“All the great southern cities have warehouse districts,” said Terry Espy, president of MoMentum Companies. “Charleston has one, Asheville has one. I think it’s time for Wilmington to have one.”
The plans for the warehouse district, a commercial plan for restaurants and office space, was unveiled during Chef Howard’s talk at WILMA’s Women to Watch Leadership Initiative luncheon earlier this week. Howard, known for her restaurant Chef & the Farmer in Kinston, said the new restaurant will focus on Italian food, including pizza cooked in two wood-fired grills.
Though the cuisine might be Italian, customers can expect Howard to uphold her dedication to locally sourced ingredients. Howard and her husband and business partner Ben Knight plan to open the 3,700 square-foot space in fall.
Also in the early planning stages for the development is a coffee and pastry shop, helmed by Lydia Clopton. After serving as pastry chef for Pinpoint restaurant since it opened two years ago, Clopton said she was in the final weeks of ironing out the details of the space. The Fortunate Glass has also signed on to open a second outpost – The Second Glass – with an eye on a 2018 opening.
The area south of the South Front Apartments has been largely abandoned for some time, with the Satellite Bar – which opened in 2009 – one of the few businesses in the area. Espy said the underutilized space has languished for far too long.
“For a long time, development has looked out away from the downtown, to Mayfair, to midtown and Porter’s neck,” Espy said. “We have such a vibrant and beautiful downtown that we haven’t really paid attention to.”
The southern part of downtown has not seen the same level of investment as the Brooklyn Arts District and the northern waterfront, Espy said.
“The downtown area is beautiful, its historic,” she said. “We’d love to see this as part of the area continuing to grow.”
Espy said additional plans for the commercial development could include co-working spaces, saying, “I guess I’ll going to have to head up to Raleigh and round up some tech guys.”
