urbanSTL

One, I'm really curious how much of this is driven by the Brewhub founder wanting his flagship property close to his house and away from AB. I believe he lives in West County if not mistaken.

Second, how much of this is getting retail traffic into tasting rooms and event space? Do they see a niche to build something comparable to what Urban Chestnut did in Maplewood, a small scale brewery and a commercial tasting/event space. In that respect, I can see where the choice fits a business plan.

I was positive that Brewhub and Green Street Properties was going to announce a deal for south city location. Green Street properties has a great location for light industrial development for South City with great freeway and rail access as well as just being across from the Lemay casino, a traffic generator.

Sounds good to me. Hopefully it'll increase the capacity of our brewers to become bigger regional and national players.

While I wish it was closer to the core, I wonder why they chose Chesterfield over some of the other business/industrial parks like Westport and Earth City. Like dredger said though, it probably mostly has to do with the desire of the CEO to be close to home. One additional point that stuck out to me though is that the article said BrewHub would seek state and local incentives. Just curious, what state and local incentives are available for a facility like this?

Or it could keep the local from opening their own breweries or expanding their own productions....

The other thought that crossed my mind is that they are selling their services to other clients who might want or perceive that the visibility is good for their business. Chesterfield does offer some visibility along a strong traffic/retail corridor just as the IKEA pick its location in part for the visibility. Which I also got me thinking about Brewhub's Lakeland, FL site. Lakeland itself is smack between Orlando and Tampa along the heavily travelled I-4 corridor

^Yeah. Unfortunately I think Chesterfield makes perfect sense. First and foremost, BrewHub is a factory. Trucks will constantly be coming and going delivering feed-stock and shipping kegs and cases of beer. It's nice that they'll have a tasting room / beer garden, but retail isn't a big part of the business. Many brands who outsource to BrewHub won't want their customers associating their brand with a third-party wholesale beer factory, they want you to think of an artisanal, hand-crafted, local product with a story and an identity.

So, I don't think we'll see signs saying "Four Hands: Now at BrewHub!" or the like. This is really an outsourcing/contracting type of operation, which will help craft brewers expand their capacity and footprint more quickly and cheaply.

Lemay sounds like a good spot, and it's too bad its not on N. Broadway or in the industrial patch around MorganFord/S. Kingshighway (where Luxco has a distillery), but this location still makes sense. And it's nice that the national HQ will be in the area and add to the post-AB/InBev diversification and growth of the beer industry in St. Louis.

^ I think it stinks. Beer should be part of our region's rebirth and there is no reason this shouldn't be going to one of the myriad of sites that would serve it perfectly well in a more disadvantaged area.

downtown2007 wrote:Very disappointing.

Seems like an odd choice. I assume Chesterfield land is not cheap and there are several locations available for new construction light industrial uses with decent highway access that I assume would be cheaper - Carondelet Coke and Northpark come to mind immediately. There are probably sites (or the City would be willing to make a site) in the North Riverfront area too.

roger wyoming II wrote:Well this sure is a strange rendering (posted over at nextstl).

This is the render from the Stltoday article you posted earlier.

The rendering needs eagles.

Thats some glossy pavement
Im disappointed but glad they chose Saint.Louis .
This could have been in Milwaukee Chicago Kansas City Detroit Minneapolis Indianapolis Cleveland Toledo Cincinnati Columbia MO Des Moines Omaha Fargo Wichita Springfield MO Peoria Saint.Paul Grand Rapids Sioux City Sioux Falls Bismarck.
Green works probably would have been the best option however i'm still hoping Schlafly does expand into the city ..

STLEnginerd wrote:

Huge disappointment.... Brew Hub to build new facility off 64 in Chesterfield. God, even our beer sprawls in this damn region.

The Brew Hub is great news. Sure they could have built in any number of alternative locations. This is going to be low density industrial development so I get why they are further out.

I am less concerned about the sprawl this represents than the schizophrenic nature of development. If Chesterfield Valley is to be a major retail center (not saying it should be but it is) why would you want to plop a gigantic industrial beer factory box in the middle of it. This complete lack of planning is what gave us Westport, Earth City and soon NorthPark. If the industrial uses were consolidated at one site the others could really grow into dynamic and exciting districts.

i

What a safe, boring, location. They will/should be successful though.

I am sure this is the case, but I just wanted to make sure. The Brew Hub development is going to be for local craft brewers to increase their capacity, correct? This is not going to be an attraction or brew pub for people to drink at? It just looks like a brew pub from the renderings. Could this operation allow local craft brewers to brew locally, versus outsourcing to the Wisc. brewers? What will be the capacity for this operation?

Sorry.... Have not followed the story closely.

^Correct, I believe that most of the space will be dedicated for brewery ops for the craft breweries. It would be interesting to know how they lay out the actual space considering they might be brewing for several different clients and types of beer at the same time. Anyone with some good insight? have done my share of brewery tours and certainly added pounds drinking the stuff but that is about it in my knowledge

I also understand from the press releases that this will also be Brewhub's corporate location and assume like Lakeland, FL that they will have a tasting room. The goal is at least 5 brewhubs through out the location. This will their second one.

Yes. We need a brew pub located downtown that celebrates STL brewing heritage. A place you can get all STL beers from all local micro breweries and large one.

DogtownBnR wrote:The Brew Hub development is going to be for local craft brewers to increase their capacity, correct?

It's going to be for local brewers to expand their production without expanding their capacity (and do so more locally instead of outsourcing it to Wisconsin, Tennessee, Kentucky, etc...), but it's also for non-local craft brewers to expand their production while expanding into the Midwest region.

^ LOVE your idea of a local beer museum and craft beer hall. I would choose one of 2 locations. Obviously, the Lemp Brewery complex would be great, as part of a larger residential/retail development. Also, the old Falstaff #10 site would be another place I'd love to see house this type of beer hall/museum. I would offer every craft beer within 75 miles and have a museum that goes through the history of the industry here. A large German beer ball would be awesome too. Can you imagine Oktoberfest at a place like this, sampling all of the local craft fall beers!