After being pushed off for a couple months by the community board’s licensing committee (see why below), the owner of a new restaurant for the former Warren 77 space got approval to get going, and he would like to open as soon as possible in the new year.

Briken Fehjzullai (the company is called Tribeca FB Partners — not sure yet what the restaurant will be called) arrived here from Albania last year with his family and 20 years experience in the culinary business there, where he owned several bars and restaurants. His plans are to open a bistro with European cuisine, ambient music and a signature cocktail list.

There will be 40 seats over 10 tables and 10 at the bar with an overall capacity of 74. The committee gave him hours till 1a on the weekends and midnight on the weekdays, with 10p on Sundays.

He had to defend his plans against the former tenant — the sports bar Warren 77 — and said he would have just one TV and wants his customers to be able to have conversations in the space. (Though I have to say I got a kick out of the daytime scene during the World Cup, when kitchen staff and delivery people from nearby would watch the TVs through the open windows.) “I have to live in this community for the next 10 years so I will try to be the perfect neighbor,” he said.

Now, to the issues brought up by the committee last time: a member of the public accused the restaurant owner of being part of a “front” for the Gindi family — the owners of Century 21 and a whole lot of Tribeca real estate — and the committee said they had to look into it. What the committee thought the front was for was a mystery to me, but they pushed off the owner so they could investigate.

There is certainly a connection between the Gindi family, Matt Abramcyk and the now-shuttered Warren 77, which was part of his Neighborhood Projects Restaurant Group. Other Tribeca restaurants and bars of his are in the Gindi’s buildings — 109 West Broadway which now has Bluestone Lane but once had A Summer Day Café; and 385 Greenwich, which houses Yves as well as Smith and Mills. But from what I can tell, 77 Warren is a condo and each floor has a different private owner. The ground floor condo may indeed be owned by the Century folks — I couldn’t figure out the unit number to look it up — but I would be really surprised if the restaurant operator is what the committee was calling them — a front.