Michael Jordan's Restaurant Debuts

WASHINGTON, DC-Celebrity athlete and star of the Washington Wizards basketball team Michael Jordan has opened an 11,000-sf restaurant called jordan’s on the ground level of the District’s Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, in conjunction with the restaurant group JumpHigher. The two-floor, 180-seat dining facility is the former home of the Palomino Euro Bistro, an establishment that closed after operating for two years and spending $4 million to build out the space.

Jordan and his business team settled on the spot, which is situated in a location at 13th and Pennsylvania that has visibility and accessibility challenges, after two years of searching. Low rent was a key factor, and it cannot hurt that the structure is second only to the Pentagon in Washington-area building. JumpHigher signed the lease for the space in October with the US General Services Administration, overseers of the Ronald Reagan Building, after Palomino owners terminated its 10-year lease. While the terms of jordan’s lease are not available, space in the 3.1 million-sf Reagan Building started out at $42 per-sf when it opened in 1997. Just last year, the US Agency for International Development renewed its lease for five years at $50 per-sf.