Not to get all Shakespearean on you, but: “Would Brooklyn Brewery beer brewed anywhere but Williamsburg smell as hoppy? Probably. But thankfully we won’t have to find out anytime soon. The brewery announced it’s staying put after successfully negotiating a new 15-year lease for its current digs. The boys at the brewery feared they wouldn’t be able to afford the space—located at 79 N. 11th St. at Wythe Ave. in Brooklyn—due to rising property values in the brewery’s costly neighborhood. And the brewery’s marketing manager Ben Hudson said they had even started considering potential new locales in Red Hook and the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Fortunately for the brewers, thanks to plummeting property values and receding interest in the area, they won’t be in need of moving boxes anytime soon; a point Hudson said everyone at Brooklyn Brewery is happy about.
“It means a great deal to us,” he said. “We came in ‘96 to a neighborhood that was changing. We’ve been along for lots of those changes and to see the neighborhood change around the brewery. To think of starting over in new neighborhood is not something we wanted to do.”
The brewery will pay approximately $15 per square foot under the new lease. The cost is higher than what they paid before, but it’s still roughly half the peak prices estimated in the midst of the Williamsburg real estate boom.
Hudson said, with the question of will they or won’t they be moving finally answered, the brewery can go back to focusing on its future. A $6.5 million plan to increase its brewing capacity is moving forward. It was announced last week that the brewery would receive an $800,000 government grant to assist with the expansion, which includes implementing green initiatives like rooftop solar panels and expanding the brewery’s brewing capacity from 8,000 to 50,000 barrels a year.
