• Semi-developed spaces are most attractive to the ambitious Massoth brothers

Full Court Press Inc. and its affiliated companies have no desire to start from scratch when leasing and improving real estate in which to launch new establishments on or near Court Avenue.

Six of the investment group’s nine downtown bars and restaurants operate in three shared locations close to the city’s core. Now, as co-owners Andy and Dan Massoth consider the future of their four-state enterprise, the brothers continue to seek out cost-effective ways to remodel existing spaces.

“We don’t rule anything out,” Dan Massoth said. “It’s probably more driven by property than by location. It’s real hard to ever get a return on our money by having to do a complete build-out anymore. We need to find places where at least part of that already exists.”

Now, as the restaurateurs negotiate a lease agreement that would allow Full Court Press to reopen a Buzzard Billy’s restaurant in Des Moines – possibly this fall – they are also thinking about how to expand Sbrocco, which functions in the company’s only owner-occupied space at 208 Court Ave.

“We don’t feel there is enough square footage there to generate enough revenue to pay for the building,” Andy Massoth said of the discussions Full Court Press has had about potentially acquiring the former Judge Roy Bean’s restaurant space next door.

“I don’t think there is anything you could ever do, investment-wise, where a restaurant or bar or anything else could basically rebuild or remodel those buildings to kind of fit the rest of the Court Avenue corridor,” Dan Massoth said. “I think both the city and us wouldn’t mind seeing a total transformation of that block. If that means we have to look at relocating Sbrocco and Shorty’s, then it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.”