ROCKVILLE, MD—The Neighborhood Restaurant Group will be opening a restaurant and beer garden at Federal Realty Investment Trust's Pike & Rose project. This particular restaurant will open in mid-2015 when the phase of construction where it will be located-the project's Upper Muse Alley-is completed.

Most of Phase I retail will be opening this fall. Restaurants that have signed leases for this part of the project include Lettuce Entertain You's Stella Barre Pizzeria and Summer House, Del Frisco's Grille, Protein Bar, Roti Mediterranean Grille, ShopHouse Southeast Asian Kitchen and La Madeleine Country French Café.

When fully built out, Pike & Rose will be mixed-use complex with 1.1 million square feet of commercial office space, 1500 residential units, a boutique hotel and approximately 4000 parking spaces. Retail, of course, will be the major draw and the project at full build will hold some 430,000 square feet of restaurants and shops and major stores.

As for National Restaurant Group, the company is creating a concept specifically for the site, according to Michael Babin, the company's principal. This will be the restaurant's first site in suburban Maryland, he adds.

When announcing National Restaurant Group, Federal Realty included an insightful comment about the importance of tenants to a particular project. "Restaurants," said Stuart Biel, senior leasing agent for the REIT, "represent the powerful personality of any retail or mixed-use project."

The REIT's CEO Donald Wood made similar observations in an interview with NAREIT that was posted to the association's website. Wood also noted how a retail tenant base can influence the rest of a project.

"If you do the street [street-level retail] right in these mixed-use projects, the residential up top is worth more," he said.