USA, MI: War Water Brewery purchasing new building for expansion in St. Clair

The center building of the St. Clair Riverview Plaza will be getting a face-lift in the coming year, The Times Herald reported on January 24.

Kris Paul, War Water Brewery owner, is slated to close on the purchase of building “C” of 201 N. Riverside Drive in downtown St. Clair by the end of March.

Paul plans on expanding his brewery to encompass a large-scale beer production facility. In addition, lofts or condos would be developed on the second floor of the building and retail space would be available for lease.

The production facility will include full canning lines to allow the beer to be canned and distributed for wholesale. Paul plans to produce 10,000 barrels of beer a year, eventually growing to produce 50,000 barrels a year. A barrel holds 31 gallons.

The current brewery opened this past summer with limited hours. The taproom will remain open until the new production facility and taproom is complete. War Water currently distributes to local bars and restaurants including Applebee’s in Port Huron, Lynch’s Irish Tavern and The Vintage Tavern, among others.

Paul said before the sale of the near $2.5 million building is official, environmental studies of the facility need to be completed and financing needs to be secured with the bank.

The current owner of the building is the Schwark family, of St. Clair, who has owned it since 1984. The Schwarks ran a furniture store for many years in the building before closing it in 2003. Since 2003, the building has house small retail shops. Each of the five buildings in the plaza are owned by different people.

Mike Schwark, Building “C” property manager, said they are very close to signing a purchase agreement.

“It will absolutely help the plaza and certainly help the whole downtown area,” Schwark said. “Kris’s plans will be awesome for downtown and should bring a lot of outside traffic back to town.”

While details are being finalized, design plans are already in the making.

“We are going through our due diligence with the bank now and working on the facility design,” Paul said. “We are hoping to start building in June and move equipment in by August.”

The target opening date of the new taproom and production facility is Labor Day.

The new taproom would be open seven days a week with a full kitchen eventually phased in.

Of the two-story, 50,000-square-foot building, 15,000-square-feet would be devoted to the production facility.

If approved by the city of St. Clair, Paul would like to remove the current façade of the building in order to install large two-story windows, allowing passerby to see the production.

The current retailers in the building, which include A-1 Computers, Hungry Howies, and Capt. Jim’s Art Gallery, among others, will be potentially moved around.

Paul said in order to accommodate the production facility and loft plans, the current retailers may have to be moved around within that same building.

“It will change the entire infrastructure of the building,” Paul said. “It will open up into the courtyard. The courtyard will essentially be the front yard of the lofts.”

Paul said the first work people will see is the production facility being built, current retail shops being relocated and changes to the façade. After that is complete, then Paul will move on to completing the residential portion of the building.

While Paul is aiming to have the production facility and taproom open by Labor Day, he expects the full project to take one to two years to complete.

“It’s going to have that urban, modern, warehouse development look to it,” he said. “We are in the process of submitting permits for outdoor area use now too. We have some summer events in the works.”

27 January, 2016