Sowing the seed of a family dream

Close your eyes and imagine:
  A curved driveway going up a hill passing a waterfall. At the top of the hill is a large and elegant banquet hall and restaurant.
You walk into a two-storied lobby with marbled floors, chandeliers and a grand staircase. To your right is a ballroom large enough for a Marine Corps Birthday Ball, Yet, when divided, small enough for a conference or business meeting.
Also on the first floor are two executive boardrooms, complete with long tables surround by leather chairs.
Now go upstairs to find an intimate fine-dining restaurant that seats about 50 to 75. Even if you weren’t going to a ball or a meeting, you could still get a meal here. From a reception area adjacent to the restaurant is another banquet hall, smaller than the one on the first floor and designed for celebrations such as weddings or reunions. There’s even a bridal room nearby.
A terrace is located beside the restaurant and overlooks a botanical garden below and beyond that a nursery.
And there’s more. The roof is a green roof with shrubs, bushes, plants and a path. Guests are invited to wander around and maybe, just maybe, catch a glimpse of the Potomac River in the distance.
Now, with your eyes still closed, imagine further that this lovely place is not only here in Prince William County, but within the town of Dumfries, along Main Street and across from the town hall.

This is more than just a dream. It is the intention of a Dumfries business family to make it a reality by 2015.

Hamid and Parwin Hashimi have owned the Dumfries Nursery on Main Street for about 15 years. Hamid Hashimi has always dreamed of someday also running his own restaurant and began buying up property next to his nursery to do it.

The Hashimis immigrated to the United States almost 30 years ago from Afghanistan. They worked at a nursery in Maryland before buying their own in Dumfries. The couple has two sons, Wali, 21, a student at George Mason University; and Ali, 27, a graduate of George Washington University.

‘Sky is the limit’

When Ali Hashimi came back to work at the nursery with his parents, he brought with him his own ideas and dreams. And with his degree in business administration, Ali Hashimi saw more possibilities for the family’s land beyond a restaurant.

“The sky is the limit,” Ali Hashimi said.

As the family worked toward acquiring the five acres they felt necessary for a two-story 60,000-square foot banquet hall, Ali Hashimi started doing his research into the need for such a facility in eastern Prince William County.

“We are situated in a really unique spot here in Dumfries. You have to go 25 miles to Fredericksburg, or 25 miles to Manassas or 25 miles to Springfield to get anything close to be equivalent to what we are looking at doing here,” he said. “I see the demand. It’s there.”

“This is something that is good for the whole community from the homeowner who wants a family gathering to corporate events,” Ali Hashimi said. “Everyone can benefit from this because it is very flexible.”

Ali Hashimi said he had traveled around the region and visited many hotels to see what sort of banquet facilities are available and to garner ideas. “I love this. This is my passion,” he said.

Ali Hashimi has developed a rough floor plan of his vision. The family has recently hired an engineer and an architect the get the project off the ground.

Ali Hashimi acknowledged that the project will be expensive. But he said half the cost – the land and the money needed for the engineer and architect – has already been paid. The family will seek investors for the cost of building the structure.

Town approves

“We feel very confident that we can get the money just through preliminary talks with a few individuals,” he said.

The Hashimis also recently received preliminary approval from the Dumfries Town Council when it agreed to remove one of the remaining roadblocks to the project.

Union Street – which dates back to the 1700s but hasn’t been used as a road for maybe 100 years – runs through the Hashimi’s property. If the town did not vacate the paper street, the Hashimi’s options for their land would be sharply curtailed.

The council recently voted to vacate the land and sell it to the Hashimis for $500.

“One of the reasons the council went with only $500 was that it was a way we could help out a businessman who wants to bring a lot of business into the town that we could benefit from,” said Dumfries Mayor Fred Yohey. “We didn’t want to stand in the way of progress.”

“The potential economic impact of this would be great,” said Dumfries Town Manager Kimberly Alexander. “With this sort of restaurant, [real estate] assessments would go up and we’d be looking at an increase in the meals taxes.”

Economic impact

A restaurant and banquet facility could be attractive to visitors of the nearby National Museum of the Marine Corps as well as the new federal agencies that will be relocating to the Quantico Marine Corps base as part of the Base Closure and Realignment plan.

“I think it would get a lot of use,” she said.

The construction of Hashimi’s restaurant/banquet hall and the eventual conversion of the historic Williams Ordinary into a colonial restaurant will go far to turn Dumfries into “a destination place rather than a town you go through to get to and from work,” Yohey said. “It will give Dumfries a different face.”

“I think they can pull it off,” Yohey said. “When people see what they have in mind, they will be impressed.”

Staff writer Aileen Streng can be reached at 703-878-8010.