Will Target all but consume Columbia Heights area?

While the bigs were congratulating one another in front of TV cameras in the foyer of the new Target, Teresa Rubio was flipping tortillas on her grill at El Sausalito. She has been serving up carne asada and pupusas at 1424 Park Road for four years. She and her husband live in D.C. They are raising three sons and a daughter. They also run a carryout at the Florida Avenue Market.

Will El Sausalito survive the massive urban renewal project that has transformed Columbia Heights from a shabby relic of the 1968 riots to the spiffy home to big-box stores?

“I’m staying right here,” says Rubio. She turns from the counter to flip tortillas and stir a pot of pork ribs. “Hopefully, more people will come.”

Authentic neighborhoods, with their funky facades and flavors, often are the casualties of urban renewal. Who remembers Whitlow’s Diner at 11th and E streets, the authentic eatery that fell to the wrecking ball in 1989? Sure, you can still get a beer and a burger at Whitlow’s — in Arlington — but it’s not the same.

Walking from the new retail stores and condos along 14th Street down Park Road yesterday morning was like crossing a time zone. On 14th, construction workers were putting the finishing touches on the new sidewalks, and storefront windows reflected buses and cars zooming by. On Park Road, buildings are boarded up, locals line up to buy lottery tickets in shops across from the Kelsey Temple church, an empty half-gallon of Smirnoff shares the sidewalk with an empty MD 2020.

No worries, says Drew Greenwald, president of Grid Properties.

“All these stores will be thriving in six months to a year,” he tells me. “We saw the same thing happen in Harlem.”

It took Greenwald, a New Yorker, to see the promise of Columbia Heights. He came to 14th and Park a decade ago and saw a neighborhood “left for dead.” He also saw the Metro coming and a crossroads between Mount Pleasant and Howard University.

“I knew people would get over their fear of the neighborhood,” he said, “and it would come alive.”

No question Mayor Adrian Fenty, his development chief Neil Albert, Council Members Jim Graham and Kwame Brown deserve credit for sweetening deals with retail businesses, bringing along the community and moving the bureaucracy. But will the result be a neighborhood where the authentic and funky joints cannot survive?

“We struggled to keep the old-timers,” Graham told reporters. “We have a mix of people and backgrounds.”

Teresa Rubio hopes to be flipping tortillas for another decade. She tells me she has a 15-year lease.

“Now we close at 7,” she says. “Maybe we can serve pupusas until 10.”

And for the new crowd, flan and espresso.