E-Malt.com News article: USA, NC: Lucky City Brewing planning out business in Reidsville

A business plan has been brewing downtown and the Reidsville City Council showed its support during their Oct. 11 council meeting.

Within the next five years as per the contract, the empty property at 228 Gilmer Street is set to become home to the cooperative microbrewery Lucky City Brewing, the Rockingham County Arts Council and the Theatre Guild of Rockingham County.

“If you can imagine, the bottom floor would be a bustling microbrewery with visitors and residents having a good time,” said Reidsville Economic Development Director Jeff Garstka. “Upstairs, (guests would find an) art gallery; possibly artist-in-residency type space, possibly a small black box theatre at some point, just a number of things that really go hand in hand with what’s going to go on the first floor.”

Lucky City Brewing President and experienced homebrewer Eric Smith noted that this plan is to help bring together local arts into one space.

“Craft beer kind of paints a picture on your pallet so to speak, but we want people to be able to look at visual arts and performing arts and everything else while they’re in town, to bring the arts to downtown Reidsville,” he said.

In planning out this business, Smith drew inspiration from Burlington-based business Burlington Beer Works, one of 19 cooperative breweries in the United States.

As part of the cooperative business model, patrons can become member owners which at Lucky City would give them rights to vote on board members, recipes and by-laws and give them access to member only beers and events.

“These people behind me are the driving force,” Smith said. “This isn’t Eric’s brewery. This is everybody’s brewery.”

RCAC Executive Director Teresa Phillips and RCAC President Barbara Osborne spoke during the council’s public hearing to say that they are excited about this partnership.

“The Lucky City Brewing Co-op so far has been—I would even say bent over backwards to be accommodating to us,” Phillips said. “‘What do you need? What can we do to help support this effort?’”

The RCAC and TGRC will continue to serve the whole county and, according to Phillips and Osborne, will be better able to from this Reidsville base.

While this cooperative brewery will break ground as one of three in development in North Carolina, this unique partnership is expected to cause waves in the arts world as well.

“We told the state arts council what we were planning on doing and they commented that this would be a game changer for the arts for this entire region,” Osborne said.

Prior to the council’s vote to allow microbreweries and to sell Lucky City the building, city staff gave this project full approval.

“This a true model of public, private and non-profit collaboration,” Garstka said. “In my close to 15 years of economic development experience, this is probably one of the most unique and complex and exciting projects I've had the pleasure of working on.”

During the council meeting, the city held a public hearing and vote for a text amendment to allow microbreweries by right in areas zoned as Central Business, General Business, Highway Business, Light and Heavy Industry with a note that, in Central and General Business, silos and outside storage is not permitted.

Once the city declared microbreweries legal in Reidsville, they held a second public hearing and vote to sell the property at 228 Gilmer Street for $1 to Lucky City Brewing and to reserve the second and third floors for lease. Based on their discussions, that lease would go to the RCAC and TGRC.

Reidsville Mayor Jay Donecker explained that the decision to sell the property for $1 comes with consideration for the impact this business will have on the city.

“The general vision for downtown is to put more feet on the street and to do that we can either have the government come in and try to force it themselves or you can work with private business to make it happen,” Donecker said.

Based on the results microbreweries have had across the state, officials involved expect to see economic growth.

According to Smith, the economic impact of microbreweries in North Carolina in 2015 was $1.2 billion with $300 million in annual wages and 10,000 jobs across the state.

“By allowing a microbrewery in the city, Reidsville can take advantage of some of these benefits that other cities have seen across in state,” Smith said.

The contract with Lucky City would require them to begin construction within three years and to be operational with five years. Should the business fail to meet their deadlines, the property would go back to city ownership.

Garstka said, however, that Smith hopes to be in operation within the next 18 months.

With the property acquired, the next step is continuing to drum up supporters and member owners.

“With us having a tangible property that people can drive by and see and put their hands on and look in the windows, that’s building excitement,” Smith said. “We’ve got excitement here in the city already.”


27 October, 2016