Engine 15 Brewing is planning to build a new brewery, tap room, outdoor beer garden and cannery at Myrtle Avenue and Beaver Street. Luch Scremin, co-owner of the Jacksonville Beach brewery, said he hopes to have the brewery open by next February.
http://jacksonville.com/entertainment/food-and-dining/2013-11-20/story/engine-15-plans-brewery-tap-room-myrtle-avenue
Interesting location. During the day, thats a fine area. At night, I've had some white knuckle drives through there.
This should also illustrate, the lack of existing stock in downtown proper for this type of use; as well as show that Intuition's Forest street location isn't a crazy idea.
As Scremin said, were people walking around at that neighborhood at night before Bold City and Intuition opened? Breweries, if they do much distribution at all, pretty much have to be in light industrial areas.
Wow. I love the location. I've always felt that warehouse district has been largely ignored. This is a great step for bridging the gap between the farmers market and downtown.
This is great news for Engine 15 and the local brewing scene. River's absolutely right. Distribution breweries are more than a bar, they need a suitable space to brew, keg, bottle and ship their beer if they want to distribute, so naturally they're going to gravitate toward industrial zones. In fact, it's difficult not to if you want to make any real quantity.
This is pretty typical in craft breweries across the country. Locally, Bold City, Intuition, Mile Marker and even Aardwolf have proven it works locally. In fact, as a formerly regular patron of the Jax Beach location, this one is only minimally less accessible, and much more suited for the industrial aspects of a brewery.
Here are a few images of the site from a photo tour of the district we did a couple of years back. The red brick building was originally a warehouse for the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company. Now known as PPG Industries, the Pittsburgh-based Fortune 500 company is a global supplier of paints, coatings, optical products, specialty materials, chemicals, glass and fiberglass.
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/1386653867_CK4HP5C-M.jpg)
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/1386653580_fmMmkWk-M.jpg)
Myrtle Avenue Warehouse District Tour: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2011-jul-myrtle-avenue-warehouse-district
Quote from: thelakelander on November 20, 2013, 04:15:31 PM
Wow. I love the location. I've always felt that warehouse district has been largely ignored. This is a great step for bridging the gap between the farmers market and downtown.
Thinking about a model for this neighborhood - does the Strip District in Pittsburgh have a brewery?
Luch is a great guy. Hope he succeeds with this investment.
BTW, Luch is short for Luciano. It's pronounced "Looch".
Quote from: thelakelander on November 20, 2013, 04:33:57 PM
Here are a few images of the site from a photo tour of the district we did a couple of years back. The red brick building was originally a warehouse for the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company. Now known as PPG Industries, the Pittsburgh-based Fortune 500 company is a global supplier of paints, coatings, optical products, specialty materials, chemicals, glass and fiberglass.
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/1386653867_CK4HP5C-M.jpg)
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/1386653580_fmMmkWk-M.jpg)
Myrtle Avenue Warehouse District Tour: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2011-jul-myrtle-avenue-warehouse-district
I was looking at this building a couple of months ago. 25k sq ft for $150k, Built in 1910 I think, pretty cool.
Quote from: Wacca Pilatka on November 20, 2013, 04:34:19 PM
Quote from: thelakelander on November 20, 2013, 04:15:31 PM
Wow. I love the location. I've always felt that warehouse district has been largely ignored. This is a great step for bridging the gap between the farmers market and downtown.
Thinking about a model for this neighborhood - does the Strip District in Pittsburgh have a brewery?
East End Brewing Company has a popular bar/booth at the Strip district's public market. Models for this area would include places like Pittsburgh's Strip District and Detroit's Eastern Market.
Currently, it's a wholesale/market district with a mix of existing industry and several underutilized structures waiting for new uses. In the 1.5 mile stretch of Beaver between King Street and I-95, there's already a farmers market, recycling plants, meatpacking, seafood processing, coffee roasting, milk/dairy processing facilities, etc. in operation. Start filling in the underutilized spaces with places like Engine 15 and you have a real authentic atmosphere in the making that complements the rest of the urban core. As the underutilized spaces are cleaned up and occupied, the area won't seem as scary as it is today to some. Then riding the S-Line Greenway will start to make sense to a lot of people. One of the benefits of being ignored by most downtown advocates and civil leaders for decades is that this area still has a lot of old funky affordable spaces still standing.
It's nice to see some activity in the vicinity of my avatar! :D
Maybe the most telling line in the story:
QuoteScremin said he had to double the brewing capacity within the first year, as has every other brewery in Jacksonville.
Those of you who are criticizing location need to get out more. (and even my 'getting out' is pretty minimal)
Cigar City Brewery - Tampa - light industrial, near nothing, not exactly in Ybor City
Florida Brewery - Orlando - light industrial, near nothing, not exactly on Independent Dr.
Sweetwater Brewery - Atlanta - light industrial, they were the start of some 'organic' growth in a not so sketchy area, but again, nothing was there but some HVAC/Plumbing outfits when they started.
I'm seeing a trend.....
I look forward to the day when our city officials figure out how to embrace and support our local brewing scene.
Then, as my 3 year old would say, we would kick infinity butt!
Quote from: river4340 on November 20, 2013, 07:41:22 PM
Maybe the most telling line in the story:
QuoteScremin said he had to double the brewing capacity within the first year, as has every other brewery in Jacksonville.
If you brew it, they will come ;)
Quote from: Intuition Ale Works on November 20, 2013, 08:36:11 PM
I look forward to the day when our city officials figure out how to embrace and support our local brewing scene.
Then, as my 3 year old would say, we would kick infinity butt!
Don't sweat it Ben. Most of your future city officials are probably enjoying a pint in your taproom as you type.
The hope is that our current city officials won't find a way to completely f^<% it up before then. ;D
Great news!
That neighborhood needs something exactly like this to start the revival. All of those neat old warehouses are just waiting for re-purposing.
Quote from: Non-RedNeck Westsider on November 20, 2013, 08:16:13 PM
Those of you who are criticizing location need to get out more.
I feel like this is directed at me. I wasn't hating on the location, I just thought it was unexpected. I was one of the biggest supporters of ben's idea to develop the site on forest street, and I've been to many of the breweries you mentioned. Breweries don't need a TON of square footage to be able to produce a lot of beer. They do, however, need high ceilings. For example, Great Divide brewery put out 20,000 barrels in 2010 from a brewery that is just slightly larger than intuition is now, but it has higher ceilings. The production area of Sweetwater wasn't that big before their expansion, but their high ceilings allowed for huge tanks.
I imagine that at one time, La Villa, Commodore Point, and other parts of DT had buildings of 20,000 square feet with high ceilings that could house a brewery today if they were kept intact. We have bulldozed much of our building stock that could have met this need.
Yeah, at one point we had just as many as any other place. However, we made sure we eliminated that blight!
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/1755178289_BWgWNcn-M.jpg)
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/1755178200_Ts2kzzv-M.jpg)
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/1755178321_Fzcr9F3-M.jpg)
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/1755178264_GLFJXRG-M.jpg)
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/1754786092_XkNPg5J-M.jpg)
Quotedoes the Strip District in Pittsburgh have a brewery?
There is a small growler booth inside thePublic Market from East End (I have a picture of it that I can upload later). A similar setup would be awesome once the Jacksonville Farmers Market gets it's indoor facility up and running.
A very boring 13 minute walk away (boring b/c you walk right through an industrial area with nothing interesting to see) there is the Church Brew Works housed in a converted church in the re-emerging Lawrencville neighborhood.
QuoteAs the underutilized spaces are cleaned up and occupied, the area won't seem as scary as it is today to some. Then riding the S-Line Greenway will start to make sense to a lot of people. One of the benefits of being ignored by most downtown advocates and civil leaders for decades is that this area still has a lot of old funky affordable spaces still standing.
Brooklyn Brewery started in the sketchiest of all sketch places... now the Williamsburg neighborhood is the hipster center of the world.
In South Boston, Shipyards Brewing Company opened up a brewery in a wharehouse next to what is basically the Boston equivalent of Beaver Street Fisheries... now there are all sorts of mixed use buildings going up next door and they have a booming Tech District in the once abandoned wharehouses just a short walk away.
I spoke to some folks over at Aardwolf last night who expressed some skepticism about this. My position is that someone has to serve the pioneer role if we're ever going to revitalize these areas. These kinds of projects have worked all over the country and our other breweries have proven it works here too.
That old picture of the Crane building makes you want to cry for what is gone and neglected.
Here's another shot of it.....
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/667217924_Sm2Ck-O.jpg)