Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.A new batch of restaurants and nightspots near 10th Street and Capitol Avenue is becoming a first stop for some after a game or a concert at the Qwest Center Omaha.
In time, developers, city planners and business owners say, the area between Omaha's historic Old Market and the region's largest event and convention locale will be a destination of its own: the Capitol District.
“That area is envisioned as sort of a bookend to the Old Market,” City Planning Director Rick Cunningham said.
TD Ameritrade Park, which will host its first event April 19, will bring more attention to the area surrounding it. But business owners and planners know that the College World Series weeks won't carry the area on its own. To work, it has to be a year-round destination.
Farrell's, a sports bar and deli, opened at the corner of 9th and Dodge Streets more than four years ago. At the time, Farrell's was somewhat isolated in a kind of no man's land between the convention center and arena and the bustling Old Market.
But since January, staff and customers at Farrell's have seen the new Capitol District spring to life. DJ's Dugout and its partner, Blazing Pianos, opened in January at the corner of 10th and Capitol. Nosh Wine Lounge followed at 10th and Dodge about a month later, and the Capitol Lounge and Supper Club now has a full menu.
A sign painted on the building that houses DJ's Dugout and Blazing Pianos touts the Capitol District name.
“We're trying to unify it all,” said Mike Moylan, developer of the building that houses the four new restaurants. Working with business owners, he includes Farrell's and Spencer's for Steak and Chops in the new district.
“To define it and give it its own identity will help people find it.”
Situated across Capitol Avenue from what the city's Downtown Master Plan calls “one of the most important sites in downtown Omaha,” the former Pinnacle Foods site, the Capitol District development hasn't been haphazard.
Moylan, who runs Shamrock Development, has lived downtown since 1995 and is responsible for the revitalization of the Paxton at 14th and Farnam Streets, served on the steering committee for the city's downtown plan.
The plan designates as a top redevelopment priority the former Pinnacle Foods site — owned by the city and currently part of the expanse of Qwest Center Omaha parking.
Ideas for the site in the 20-year plan include another convention hotel, which currently is being negotiated, and more restaurants, retail shops, office space and residences built on top of or around parking structures.
All of that could expand the Capitol District's current six-restaurant grouping into a true urban district, say Moylan and Cunningham.
“It would be an active, street-level development,” Cunningham said.
As pockets of restaurants and retail spring up throughout downtown, the entire area becomes more accommodating to visitors, said Joe Gudenrath, executive director of Omaha's Downtown Improvement District. He also was involved in the downtown plan, which divides downtown into 10 distinct districts.
Continued growth around those district cores — in north downtown around Film Streams and the Slowdown; around the Paxton and in the business core; throughout the Old Market; and now at 10th and Capitol — is creating a “park-once downtown,” Gudenrath said.
For Moylan, who has paid careful attention to downtown Omaha for decades, that is crucial.
“Blocks downtown are like miles out west,” he said. “It's convenient if it's one block away.”
Think of it this way, he said: If you're at Oak View Mall, at 144th Street and West Center Road, driving three miles to the Shoppes of Legacy, at 168th Street, wouldn't raise an eyebrow. But walking from the Qwest Center at 10th and Cass Streets the eight blocks to the heart of the Old Market can seem daunting.
The more growth, the less that daunting feeling will stop visitors in their tracks.
“When you're in Chicago, eight blocks doesn't seem like a big deal. In Omaha we have some gaps,” Moylan said.
Each new business helps to fill in the gaps.
Moylan and Gudenrath agreed that those additions, rather than creating competition for another district, should draw more of a variety of visitors, encourage exploration and increase the number of visitors overall.
One spot, next to Nosh at 10th and Dodge, remains available in Shamrock's Capitol District development. The space most recently held the traveling Bodies exhibit. Moylan said temporary arrangements like that one are possible until the right tenant is found. He's hoping for a restaurant that would complement the entire district.
The restaurants already in the newly christened Capitol District are glad to be the first things pedestrians see as they leave a big concert or a game.
Kim Stonys, a manager at Farrell's, said just having neighbors now is making a difference.
“Their customers are coming and we're the first bar they see,” she said. A lot of groups now stop in on their way south to the Old Market.
Vicki Rush, assistant manager at DJ's Dugout, said name recognition from the sports bar's other locations in Omaha and Bellevue helps, but being the Qwest Center's “next-door neighbor” certainly also helps. She said the bar has drawn large crowds in the three months since opening day.
And the businesses help one another ensure success and positive customer experiences, she said. The newest addition to the area, the Capitol Lounge and Supper Club, recently expanded its operation, and Rush said DJ's has been there to help if they run out of something.
“I think (the area) is going to have its own identity and that's really cool.”
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