From Oskar Blues:
Oskar Blues Leases 30,375 Square Feet at Nearby SVIC Facility
Brevard, NC (January 28, 2021): Oskar Blues Brewery, a pioneer in the craft beer industry and a member of the CANarchy Craft Brewery Collective, is slated to become the newest tenant of the Sylvan Valley Industrial Center (SVIC) as the company moves forward with a lease of 30,375 square feet in the Brevard, North Carolina, facility. The move comes as the Brevard brewery works to expand brewing, canning and overall operational capacity in order to keep pace with growing demand. The expansion and lease will lead to the addition of at least 10 new full-time positions at the SVIC facility over the coming year. The move will positively impact local jobs and investment at both facilities.
Oskar Blues first located to Transylvania County in 2012, following founder Dale Katechis’ passion for small mountain towns and mountain biking. When Oskar Blues first opened their doors in 2013, the Brevard facility was the largest brewery in North Carolina with an annual brewing capacity of 100,000 barrels. The manufacturing facility began with just a few dedicated employees but has grown into a multifaceted operation including a taproom, food truck, brewing operations, canning, shipping, testing labs, sales/marketing personnel, chemist and quality control folks (highly coveted positions) that now total more than 115 full-time employees, making the operation one of the largest manufacturing employers in the county as well as a top visitor destination in the City of Brevard.
Among the seven breweries within the CANarchy Craft Brewing Collective, the Oskar Blues Brewery Brevard location has established itself as one of the top producing facilities. In 2015, following years of fast-paced growth, the brewery underwent a sizeable expansion, adding over 30,000 square feet and additional brewing equipment. The current expansion into SVIC represents the next step in the brewery's growth.
Thomas Transue, Oskar Blues General Operations Manager, said, “We feel extremely fortunate that demand for our products has maintained growth, giving our local leadership an opportunity to look for creative ways to expand our operations and headcount. In 2020, our Brevard facility will produce over 200,000 barrels. The addition of the Sylvan Valley Industrial Center site will allow our facility some much needed flexibility to increase capacity, hire more employees and ship more product. We can’t wait to get started.”
As the company began evaluating various options around the country to accommodate new production capacity, a near perfect opportunity arose just down the street in Brevard at the SVIC. The new Oskar Blues facility will allow for upfit and expansion of some ancillary support functions such as cold storage, logistics and specialized packaging lines. Once upfit is complete, Oskar Blues will add 10 new jobs at the SVIC by the end of 2021 with room for additional growth in future years.
About Oskar Blues Brewery
Founded in 1997 in Lyons, Colorado, Oskar Blues Brewery launched the craft-beer-in-a-can apocalypse with their voluminously hopped, hand-canned brew, Dale’s Pale Ale. Today, Oskar Blues operates breweries in Colorado, North Carolina and Texas, brewing and canning boundary stomping craft beer like Can-O-Bliss IPA, Dale’s Pale Ale, Oskar’s Lager, the CANundrum Mix Pack and more. Oskar Blues beers are available nationwide in the US and in more than 15 countries. Oskar Blues Brewery is a proud member of CANarchy, a disruptive collective of like-minded craft brewers dedicated to bringing high-quality, innovative flavors to drinkers in the name of independent craft beer.
About the Sylvan Valley Industrial Center:
The Sylvan Valley Industrial Center is a public-private industrial project which was completed in January, 2018. The project was envisioned to address a long-recognized need to help create industrial inventory in the community to help retain, grow and recruit manufacturing employers and the associated jobs to the community.
The project involved cooperation and coordination among the City of Brevard, Transylvania County, the Alliance and outside, economic development focused funding organizations like the Golden Leaf Foundation, the North Carolina Department of Commerce. The City of Brevard committed the site, a former parking lot for the Ecusta Paper Mill. The County, NC Commerce and the GoldenLeaf Foundation contributed funds for vertical construction. SylvanSport, led by Tom Dempsey, was the glue for the project. An incredibly innovative, outdoor industry, seeking additional room for planned operational and job expansion who committed early to a long term lease.
An investment in our future. As the project generates lease revenue, a proportional share of the revenue is directed towards the project’s debt obligation, unlike most projects, a small, but meaningful percentage of the lease revenue generated by leases is saved and dedicated to a future economic development initiatives. Essentially our community is paying the success of today forward to future generations.
Tax base. Given the property was most recently owned by the City of Brevard it was essentially a non-tax producing asset for the community. This industrial project put this parcel back on the tax books. The project is now producing about $56,000 per year in tax revenue annually.
Jobs. With the SVIC now 100% occupied the job creation in the building is expected to generate nearly 50 direct jobs in the community as employment increases at this location over the coming year. This represents a little more than 6% of the total manufacturing employment base in the county.
Timing. As we developed our financial proforma with public stakeholders, the UNC-Development Finance Initiative forecasted a 2 year period of partial occupancy before the property would be stabilized with a second user. With Oskar Blues Brewery’s commitment, we beat those initial projections. Moreover, because our organization was able to lease space to Transylvania Vocational Services (TVS) in 2019 on a short term bases to help with some capacity constraints at their location the building was vacant for a total of 12 months which beat those initial projections.
The Transylvania Economic Alliance is a 501(c)(3) organization that works to lead responsible economic development through engaging the private and public sectors to develop community assets that are needed to maximize opportunities for investment and quality job creation. For more information about the Alliance please visit www.transylvaniaalliance.com or contact Executive Director, Josh Hallingse at 828-393-4130. To learn more about Canarchy please visit www.canarchy.com.
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