A proposed floating Georgetown restaurant is getting opposition from the boating community.
Clyde’s Restaurant Group has it’s sights set on a 9,700-square-foot, 250-seat restaurant barge next to the Key Bridge, a site that boaters say will block navigation under the bridge.
“The project threatens navigation and river safety at this location and would interfere with and displace the rapidly growing rowing, paddling and sailing activities on this stretch of the Potomac River,” according to the Potomac Boat Club’s Web site (www.rowpbc.net).
“We do not want it to happen,” says Bill Baxter, part-owner of Jack’s Boathouse, located right near the proposed site.
Mr. Baxter says the Clyde’s restaurant will significantly impact his business, which offers canoes, kayaks and row boats, because “it’s a big thing and it’s at the end of our dock.”
The plans for the restaurant, which is currently called “the Boat Club,” still need to be approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The restaurant, which will have 150 to 200 employees, looks like three Victorian houses floating on a barge, says Tom Meyer, vice president of restaurant development for Clyde’s. If that area ever gets flooded the structure can rise with the water.
Mr. Meyer is not surprised that there are concerned boaters but the floating restaurant won’t restrict their access to the river, he says.
Despite the opposition, Mr. Meyer is confident the project will be completed, but he doesn’t know when. An engineering study will be submitted to the Corps of Engineers within the next six weeks, he says.
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