Robin Godwin: Atlas Restaurant Group’s ‘Watershed’ at Cross Street Market to Have Large Rooftop Deck

On Thursday, Cross Street Market developer Arsh Mirmiran of Caves Valley Partners (CVP) and architects from Brown Craig Turner (BCT) revealed plans to Baltimore City Planning Department’s Urban Design and Architecture Advisory Panel (UDAAP) for the exterior of Watershed, the seafood restaurant by the Atlas Restaurant Group that will occupy the S. Charles St. entrance to the market. The design features a long rooftop deck that stretches the entire length of Watershed’s 5,200 sq. ft. interior space.

The design features a painted Watershed sign with a fish logo on the S. Charles St. brick facade, along with graphics for Watershed, Cross Street Market, and Atlas’ additional Atlas Fish Market concept along the north and south facades of the space. The S. Charles St. facade will continue to have signs for Cross Street Market.

The exterior stairwell to the rooftop deck will go on a sidewalk on the north side of the market. The stairwell will be in an enclosure that will also have storage. A new sidewalk will replace surface parking on the south side of Watershed’s space.

The rooftop deck, which will have a capacity of 167, will have a bar; table seating; and a gaming area for corn hole, pool, foosball, and ping pong. There will be a large shade structure on the north side of the space, a trellis with plants growing in it to provide some shade and define the game area, and a wall facing east which will have a large television. The rooftop deck will feature many TVs and the tables will have umbrellas.

To accommodate the new rooftop deck, Atlas will completely demolish the interior of the space outside of the three exterior walls. The roof will be torn out as the existing roof is not strong enough to support the new deck. A new level concrete slab will be poured to eliminate the current slope, and the interior will have structural columns supporting the roof. There will be a one-and-a-half foot step down between the rest of the market and Watershed as a result of the new flat surface that will be flush to the sidewalk at S. Charles St.

Large HVAC units currently located on top of Watershed’s future space will be relocated.

The interior will have large kitchen and a seating capacity of 125. Interior design plans were not part of the presentation.

Watershed will serve “many of the region’s signature seafood dishes and steamed hard shell blue crabs that are sourced locally as frequently as possible.”

Atlas will operate Atlas Fish Market outside of its Watershed space in two stalls adjacent to Pizza Di Joey and Southside Burger Bar. The concept will have a raw bar for dine-in customers, as well as a fresh fish stall for customers to take home and prepare seafood they purchase. Atlas Fish Market will sell many of the fresh products available at Atlas restaurants, including Maryland crab meat, Chilean sea bass, Scottish salmon, Chesapeake Bay rockfish, Portuguese octopus, Gulf shrimp, and local oysters.

UDAAP panelists were critical of the shade structure and about the relationship between Watershed and the rest of the market. As Watershed will be a restaurant setting, the main western entrances to the rest of the 31,800 sq. ft. market will be on E. Cross St. just past the Watershed space, but Mike Holler of BCT said Watershed will not necessarily discourage people from walking through Watershed to get to the rest of the market.

Mirmiran said the plan does not need to come before UDAAP again and that the plans will be tweaked based on the comments. They hope the start the approximately six-month construction project at the end of February and open by the end of summer.

“When presented with the opportunity to not only open a restaurant in Historic Cross Street Market, but to also open a stall that supplies the community with fresh seafood options on a daily basis, we jumped at the chance to open Atlas Fish Market,” said Atlas Restaurant Group Founder/President Alexander Smith in a press release. “Through our connections with local, national and international purveyors, we look forward to bringing in some of the freshest seafood offerings in the city, as well as some unique and rare selections.”

“We are excited to join the Federal Hill community and provide a dining experience that will be unique to the neighborhood,” said Smith. “BCT Architects have done an incredible job designing our space to perfectly complement Cross Street Market’s beautiful redesign.”

With the addition of this new concept, Atlas Restaurant Group will have 20 restaurants in four markets nationally, operating 17 different concepts that employ more than 1,300 people locally and 1,500 nationally.

Mirmiran said that of the 24 stalls at Cross Street Market, two are currently available with one in discussion. Two concepts have yet to be announced. CVP along with its team of CANAdev and MacKenzie began renovations in April 2018 and it started to reopen in May 2019. 17 stalls are currently open.

The redevelopment of Cross Street Market is an approximately $8.5-million project.

Read SouthBMore.com’s articles detailing the different aspects of the Cross Street Market redevelopment here.

Renderings courtesy of Atlas Restaurant Group and Brown Craig Turner