The team behind Cloverdale's fine-dining spot Vintage Year plans to open an Italian restaurant inside a long-vacant 1925 building in the heart of downtown Montgomery.

Workers have spent a year renovating the former City Federal Savings & Loan at 36 Commerce Street and the closed co-working space next door. It’s all part of a new development called City Fed that will feature an Italian restaurant called Ravello as well as an events space, an open-air alleyway courtyard and more.

Structural work is nearly finished inside the three-story space, which now has a skylight and mezzanine area. But there’s a lot of work ahead. Montgomery County Historical Society President James Fuller said the people behind the project are taking a meticulous approach to restoring the building’s original ornate plaster work.

“It takes a lot of bucks to do that,” Fuller said. “It’s easier to just plaster over it.”

Vintage Year co-owner Jud Blount took a similar approach when turning a longtime Cloverdale bank building into Vintage Café two years ago. People now walk the original terrazzo floors and even sit down in the bank vault at the former Regions Bank at 416 Cloverdale Road to sip gourmet coffee.

Chef Eric Rivera has won acclaim for his creations at Vintage Year, most recently from an international team of auto writers who were here to test the redesigned Hyundai Sonata. Jim Trainor of Hyundai Motor America said the group met at the Cloverdale restaurant for dinner and were wowed by the food.

“When you impress these guys with a meal … they’ve been around the world a hundred times,” Trainor said.

The City Fed building is surrounded by some of the anchors of Montgomery’s new downtown. It’s sandwiched between an Alabama State University building on one side and BBVA Compass on the other. The Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce and Air Force innovation center MGMWerx are across the street, and it’s about a block away from the Alley development.

It’s expected to open late next year. Blount said more details about the project are coming at November 6 announcement.

Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Brad Harper at bharper1@gannett.com.