by newsposter » Fri Sep 04, 2009 12:29 pm
More breweries.
From an August 29 2009 Herald column by Irena Karshenbaum
http://www.calgaryherald.com/Brewing+mo ... story.html
Brewery redevelopment projects are not new. They are not ugly old sites. They are economic assets whose value is being recognized and revived around the world. Toronto restored the Distillery District ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillery_District ), Halifax restored Keith's Brewery Building ( http://halkirkproperties.com/flash/halkirk.swf ) and Milwaukee is currently working on the massive Pabst Redevelopment.
Real estate developer Joseph Zilber stepped forward to buy the Pabst Brewery when the City of Milwaukee rejected buying it. He did it despite having found it in "terrible disrepair" and managed to secure financial backing from the City of Milwaukee. Zilber sold shares of the massive brewery site to various developers so they could redevelop portions of the site and chose to develop parts himself. A developer that specializes in innovative housing and adaptive reuse projects, Gorman and Company, stepped forward to redevelop Pabst Keg house into lofts; two local private developers bought the boiler house to redevelop it for office use for an architectural firm; small business owners bought a building for their upscale flower shop at street level and lofts on the upper floors. The City of Milwaukee invested in developing park space and walkways and once the project gained momentum the State of Wisconsin kicked in funding to house an engineering campus of the University of Wisconsin. With all the economic turmoil in the U. S., the Pabst project has been a rare ray of hope with investment demand remaining steady.
The Calgary Brewing and Malting Company site should take a page out of the Pabst Redevelopment book. It would be a coup for Calgary.
More on the Milwaukee project:
http://www.thebrewerymke.com/index.htm
http://www.jsonline.com/business/42885472.html