If you live in Tampa Heights, you have watched the building at 1701 N. Franklin sit dark for the better part of six years. The Hall on Franklin, the food hall that opened in 2017 and closed in the first weeks of the pandemic, has been the block's most visible pause. That pause is ending this summer, and the thing replacing it is not another single food hall. It is three separate concepts under one roof, backed by a $15 million buildout, arriving in a staggered rollout that residents are going to feel first as sidewalk noise and last as a fully connected walk from Armature Works to downtown.
The thesis of this guide is simple. The reopening of 1701 N. Franklin closes the last significant gap on the walking corridor between the Heights Public Market and the downtown core. Everything else on this page is evidence for that.
The three concepts, in one building
Tampa Bay Times food reporter Evan Rodriguez confirmed in late March that Boogie Heights, Hail Mary Social Club, and Uno Mas: Taqueria + Lounge are all coming to 1701 N. Franklin St., with a late-summer target and staggered openings. Partner Joshua Pardue, a Tampa investor with other holdings on the corridor, told Tampa Bay Business & Wealth in March that the group planned to reopen the property within 60 to 90 days of the announcement. That timeline lands squarely on the block right now.
Here is what each concept is, and who is behind it.
| Concept | Floor | What it is | Who's behind it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hail Mary Social Club | Ground | Roughly 200-seat sports-bar-by-day, late-night social club after dark, with a wraparound island bar and curved screens | Partners Dor Haim, Enrique DeJesus, Al Rogers, Joshua Pardue, Robert Stern; kitchen led by chef David Reyes |
| Uno Mas: Taqueria + Lounge | Ground | Mexico City-style tacos with two speakeasy-style mezcal lounges tucked inside; food also by Reyes | Same ownership group |
| Boogie Heights | Second floor | Retro dance hall with a full dance floor, half-circle booths, a stage, and a large disco ball; all-inclusive happy hour; music from the 70s through 90s | Same ownership group |
Chef David Reyes, who is running the kitchens at both ground-floor concepts, has taken home prizes at three consecutive Tampa Bay Wine & Food Festivals and previously served as executive chef at Haiku and St. Petersburg Distillery. His menu at Hail Mary is aimed at elevated comfort food that reads as bar food from across the room and something more careful up close.
Hail Mary's daily hours are set to run from 11 a.m. to midnight Monday through Thursday, until 3 a.m. Friday and Saturday, and until 1 a.m. Sunday. That is not a room built to close at ten.
"That stretch from Big Blue north to the YMCA should be one of the most walkable retail corridors in the city." — Joshua Pardue, in Tampa Bay Business & Wealth
The larger container for the three concepts is being marketed as 1701, a roughly 16,000-square-foot retail-and-dining complex inside what preservationists call the Farris Building, part of the Yellow Brick Row on North Franklin. Hoodline, citing Tampa Bay Business Journal reporting, put the total project cost near $15 million.
Why this address matters more than the food
A single reopening is a story about a restaurant. Three concepts inside one building, with staggered rollouts, is a story about a block. And when you overlay 1701 on the actual geography of Tampa Heights, the picture changes.
Armature Works sits at 1910 N. Ola Ave. and functions as the busiest dining anchor on the Riverwalk north of downtown. The Hall on Franklin building sits about three blocks east, at the corner of Franklin and Henderson. Downtown proper begins another handful of blocks south. For six years, the middle of that walk has been a stretch of underused frontage and dead corners.
Kenyetta Hairston-Bridges, president and CEO of the Tampa Downtown Partnership, described Franklin Street to Tampa Bay Business & Wealth as "an important piece of connective tissue linking the River District, the downtown core and Tampa Heights." That framing is doing more work than it looks like. The 1.1-mile stretch of Franklin, from Jackson Street downtown to Palm Avenue near Tampa Heights, is what the Downtown Community Redevelopment Agency is targeting with roughly $6 million in Franklin Street Vision streetscape funding, according to a City of Tampa announcement summarized by Hoodline. Upgraded sidewalks, pedestrian lighting, crossings, and wayfinding are all in scope.
Read the timing together:
- Late summer 2026: Staggered openings begin at 1701 N. Franklin.
- Same window: Chill Bros. Scoop Shop opens its fifth location inside Armature Works, per Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.
- In progress: The city expects to issue a request for qualifications for the Franklin Street streetscape design in the coming months.
- February 2027 target: The West River BUILD project, a $56.8 million expansion of the Tampa Riverwalk that broke ground in November 2025, is aiming for substantial completion.
If you already live here, the practical version of that timeline is that the walk from your front door to a taco, a Guinness at Ulele, or the Riverwalk is going to feel meaningfully shorter this fall than it did last fall. Not because the distances changed, but because the middle of the walk stopped being empty.
What this looks like on a Wednesday night
A neighborhood becomes a neighborhood when there is something to do on a Wednesday that does not involve driving. Tampa Heights is closer to that than the map suggests.
The Heights Night Market runs on 7th Ave. directly in front of Armature Works on the second Wednesday of every month, from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. It is free, it is family-friendly, and it books a rotating cast of artisans plus live music. If you time it, you can loop the market, grab a scoop at Chill Bros., and then walk the three blocks to 1701 for a late dinner without moving your car.
That loop did not exist a year ago. It exists now because three separate operators, plus a city streetscape program, plus a food hall expansion, all happened to converge on the same handful of blocks in the same season. That kind of convergence is what turns a residential neighborhood with amenities into a walkable one.
Dor Haim, one of the Hail Mary partners, told Creative Loafing that ownership is treating each concept as its own identity rather than a food-hall grid. The reason that matters for residents is straightforward. A food hall pulls a crowd once. Three destinations under one roof, each with its own hours and its own audience, pull crowds at different times of day. That difference is what keeps Franklin Street from going quiet at 9 p.m., and what makes the streetscape money the CRA is spending actually pay off.
The building itself is worth knowing
The property records tell a small story worth carrying with you the next time you walk past. The Farris Building dates to the early 20th century and was restored in recent years, producing roughly 16,000 square feet of space that was purpose-suited to multi-tenant hospitality use once someone decided to run it that way. Property listings on LoopNet marketed the address for retail and food service through the vacancy, and Tampa preservation notes have kept it on the shortlist of the corridor's most recoverable buildings.
The corner it sits on, Franklin and Henderson, once held The Chambers, a two-story gay bar remembered locally as a landmark of Tampa nightlife. Bringing a dance floor back to that address at Boogie Heights is not accidental history. It is a specific echo. Whether the new operators intended that echo or not, residents old enough to remember will hear it.
A short note for the near future
Two smaller items to keep on your radar as the openings roll out this summer.
The Ciccio Restaurant Group is separately building The Black Palm inside the former C House space at 5420 N. Florida Ave., backed by Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper, with a late-summer target per Tampa Bay Business Journal reporting. That address is not on Franklin, but it sits inside the same broader Heights migration story and will draw some of the same evening traffic.
The Pendry Tampa tower at 100 Ashley Drive, on the downtown Riverwalk, is on track for a 2027 opening with four announced food and beverage concepts. That is not a Tampa Heights amenity, but it is the south endpoint of the same walking corridor. When Franklin Street's streetscape work is finished and Pendry opens, the through-line from your front porch in Tampa Heights to a rooftop cocktail downtown is going to be one continuous walk.
What to do this weekend
Here is the short version, for anyone skimming.
- Watch the fencing at 1701 N. Franklin. Openings are staggered, and Hail Mary is expected first. If you see interior lights on after dark, the soft opening is close.
- If it is the second Wednesday of the month, go to the Heights Night Market on 7th Ave. Bring cash for the smaller vendors.
- Try the new Chill Bros. counter inside Armature Works and pair it with a walk south down Franklin to see the streetscape lines the city is about to redraw.
- Note where you are stopping and where you are not. Six months from now, that map will have changed.
If you own a home in Tampa Heights and you have been debating whether the neighborhood you bought into is still the neighborhood you live in, this summer is the answer. The block is finishing itself.
When you are ready to talk about what any of this means for the value of your home, or to walk a property with someone who reads the block the same way, Acropolis Realty Group Tampa is a phone call away. Request a home valuation or start a Tampa real estate conversation whenever the moment is right.
