Soon after he opened Star Bar on Ingersoll Avenue, Jeremy Morrow started talking about opening a sushi and noodle bar downtown. He also dreamed about opening another upscale restaurant after selling Bistro 43 and Bistro Montage. The fact that he is able to open both at the same time under one roof a year after opening Star Bar may be perfect timing and a lot of luck.

Historical renovation of The Kirkwood Hotel into 54 residential units has encouraged development like Morrow’s to enter the Fourth Street block between Walnut and Court Avenue, especially with expectation of a consistent customer base. Vaudeville Mews is planning to expand in collaboration with Java Joes, Mid Air and Ink has made improvements to its building and Randolph Investment Corp., is in negotiations with a developer to transform the Randolph Hotel into a boutique hotel.

These projects are not only expected to revive buildings on the west side of Fourth Street, but also continue to expand the entertainment district around Court Avenue.

“I think [The Kirkwood] was something that needed to happen,” said Pat Schneider, commercial real estate agent for retail development in The Kirkwood, “It will jump start the whole area again.”

“I hope it (our restaurant) adds to all the other development that’s going on downtown and makes it more of a destination,” said Morrow. “Slowly, that’s everybody’s goal. We want to bring people downtown as a destination rather than having them go to the suburbs.”

Morrow plans to open a contemporary sushi and noodle bar in the 2,500-square-foot space of the hotel’s former café. The area will accommodate about 50 people with a lot of seating around the bar and about 25 tables in the open space.

The upscale restaurant and bar will fill a 6,000-square-foot room along Walnut Street. Morrow plans to offer a menu similar to Bistro 43, but with more options and more dishes that incorporate local ingredients. The area will seat about 120 people in a traditional-style setting created with stone, wood and other natural materials, which Morrow said will fit in with the historic look of the apartment building. A section in back of the room will be a bar area that might seat about 30 people. The whole room, however, will be open and provide a comfortable ambiance Morrow remembers from eating in upscale restaurants while living in San Francisco.

The ballroom behind the restaurant will be able to serve around 100 people, said Morrow, and can be divided into four sections for smaller parties or left open for big banquets. Both the sushi bar and restaurant will have outdoor seating as well.

Morrow predicts that the project will be completed by February and he has a lease for five years with the option of renting for two more five-year time slots.

Converting the space into a restaurant and sushi bar should be easy, said Schneider, because the building has already been historically renovated and many of the original hoods and other equipment are still intact.

The main level will have a renovated lobby with a glassed-off section by the elevators, accessible only to Kirkwood residents. Joe Coppola, whose family, through its Randolph Investment Corp., has owned the building since 1974 envisions the lobby as a social space for residents and guests and said it could start to be utilized as early as Oct. 1 when most of the apartment units are completed.

Currently, floors 8 through 12 are almost finished and Allison Schneider, leasing agent, says several people have stopped by during the farmer’s market and over the lunch hour to tour them. Four people are filling out applications now, said Schneider, and one group is trying to move in by November 1.

Allison Schneider said the apartments have attracted young professionals who want to live close to where they work but are not ready to buy a place. Coppola also said empty nesters are interested in the apartments because, “they want to come and lease for a year to test the market before making a purchase downtown.”

“[The apartments] are urban, clean and functional,” said Coppola, and designed for entertaining.

Each level has five units with different layouts, including two studios, two one-bedroom units, and one two-bedroom unit. The units range from 869 square feet to 1362 square feet with a rental price between $939 and $1,673 a month. Every level except the second floor has the same layout, but the 12th floor has extra high ceilings and different lighting as well as a fireplace and flat screen television hook-up in the corner suites.

All the apartments come with stainless-steel appliances, separate heating and cooling systems, and a stacked washer and dryer unit. They are set up to be airy with panels on the bathroom doors to let light in even when the bathroom lights are turned off. Features include hardwood floors, granite countertops and operating windows. Many also are designed so that a partial wall can be added to create an extra bedroom.

There will also be a fitness center in the basement with a sauna and hot tub as well as a 66-car parking garage that will be connected to the building with a covered alleyway fenced off from the street. The alleyway might eventually include an outdoor seating area, Coppola said, and Amedeo Rossi, who just signed another five-year lease for The Lift next door, said he may offer outdoor seating in that location this spring.

The basement level might be converted into a store or bar where a meeting space is now located. Coppola said that he has had several people approach him about using the space over the years, including someone who wanted to build a bar and bowling alley, but nothing has been decided yet. At one time, Schneider said they had a proposal for a wine cellar, but are holding off to see how a planned wine and grocery store develops on Court Avenue.

The apartments won’t be rented for too long, however. Coppola and Metro Engineering of Omaha, the general contractor and partner in the project, plan to sell them as condominiums in five years at market rate.

The whole package, including the skywalk and location near Court Avenue and the Civic Center, should make the Kirkwood a great place to live, said Coppola. Rossi, co-owner of Vaudeville Mews on the Fourth Street block, agrees and believes expansion of its theater will be another boost to the area.

“A lot of times,” said Rossi, “what may happen in a community is that some people locate downtown and those people go out themselves, but friends might live on other sides of town or suburbs and come down and join them.

“There are very few [historical] structures left and I think people are drawn to them and like them.”

Owners Rossi, Jim Tough and Frank Burnette are partnering with Joe Coppola to put the new theater in the game room of Coppola’s Java Joes Coffee House. Tentatively called the Fourth Street Theater, the 216 location will have a separate entrance, seating for about 100 people and a wider stage than the current one at Vaudeville Mews. A wall will separate the theater from Java Joes, but a door opened before the show will allow people to get drinks.

The renovation will allow the theater to be bigger, have more lighting instruments, and won’t require actors to tear down the stage after each performance for a late-night music act.

“We’ve almost over-programmed the Mews,” he said. “It sometimes created friction between music acts that load in late and wouldn’t be able to do a sound check and theater productions wouldn’t have sufficient time to tech their shows. They were pressed to get out of there and for us to turn over the house.”

When the space is completed late this fall, Rossi expects that they will be able to do some more local productions as well as book more outside theater companies. They even are considering putting in a projector that would allow them to show some films.

“[Vaudeville Mews] gives creative people of Des Moines another outlet,” Rossi said.

Coppola said he may soon develop the upstairs level above Java Joes too and Rossi said they may eventually decide to move the theater up there.

On the other end of the Fourth Street block, Randolph Hotel is still being considered for a boutique hotel. The Coppola family has been in negotiations with investors and a developer for the past six months and said they will likely take negotiations to the end whether they decide to go with the hotel concept or drop it.

“I think we’ll find whether it will go anywhere in next couple months,” said Coppola. “It’s a bookend there and I think we want it as nice as possible.”

A boutique hotel is an especially good option, said Coppola, especially with Court Avenue’s development, which has the potential to bring an influx of people to the area.

If the proposal does not go through, Coppola said that he has been asked to look at some other proposals, one of which may be for an affordable living unit. For now, however, he is focused on finishing the Kirkwood project.

If development plans were approved for the boutique hotel, it could still be at least another year or two before the hotel project is finished, said Coppola. In addition, it would be a long transition process to relocate current tenants into other housing options.

But all these improvements when completed, said Coppola, will create “a better quality of life around you.

“I think the whole block in the next three to five years will have been transformed.”