A 6-story, 75-unit condominium with ground-floor retail will be built on the land now occupied by the B & O Espresso, at Olive Way and Belmont Avenue, but for now it appears likely that the owners will sign a 2-year lease for their space, after which they will leave for a new Capitol Hill location.

Majed Lukatah, who with his wife owns B & O, told us last May that he was looking to buy a new building and relocate in advance of construction. The developer, John Stoner, has expressed his interest in selling the roughly 4,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space to B & O, but the construction would have forced the coffee shop and bakery to take a costly sabbatical. “I don’t see how (I could have stayed) if they’re taking the building down,” says Lukatah. “I don’t want to be on the street for a year.”

But Lukatah says that during these intervening months he hasn’t been able to find a site as good as the one he has now. By signing a the two-year lease, he has more time to devote to that search. Construction, then, appears likely to begin on the mixed-use project about this time in 2008.