8 Broadway Brewing: Another rendition of a Grand Marais Microbrewery

Ok, so I got sidetracked on the brewery situation.  Admittedly things have been a little crazy in my life for the past year.  One thing has stayed constant in my conversations with people though; Grand Marais needs a microbrewery!

This Stuff is Expensive!

When I was putting together the idea for the brewery I got some really great support from some statewide organizations who offer investments to rural businesses so that the communities they exist in can benefit.  This rolled out to mean that I could find funding for the brewing equipment, which was not a small amount of money, but I couldn't find $1.00 to help with the costs of finding/buying/leasing a LOCATION. for the brewery.  Given, real estate in Grand Marais is neither cheap nor plentiful, but there are a few locations that would be ideal.  No dice.  Soooo, when a new piece of property came up for sale my interest was piqued yet again.  I started up the conversation with a few fellow beer aficionados again and got a rough idea put together.  Bear with me, but I think that you will like this!

The idea:
Grand Marais lacks a micro-brewery to serve as the area's hub for local flavors and beer snobs alike.  The night life in town is wildly underserved not by the fault of any of the area businesses, they are actually doing a lot and are doing it well, but because there just aren't that many venues, nor are there venues that are open late enough for the local folks to use them.  Now, with that said, there has to be some market research done here to make sure that what I am saying is completely true!  Everyone that I have talked to about it agrees though: Grand Marais needs a casual, affordable, comfortable night spot.

The property:

Needs some TLC; use your imagination!

8 Broadway.  This building is a historic "downtown" building that needs some love, but that has quietly hosted an art gallery for several years.  The first floor of the building is one large, open room with a low ceiling and a loose herringbone wooden floor.  With that right encouragement and handy people, this first floor could become something beautiful, dark wood on the walls, classy light fixtures to promote a shaded yet bright environment.  There are several little nooks on the first floor right now, which would be great to build into seating areas or just to give you a little privacy in an otherwise completely open room.  On one side you have the bar, at the back corner you have a stage for performers.  It would be beautiful and awesome.  Total seating?  I would guess about 30 people.

Yes, I'll take a Scotch...

Upstairs there are currently two apartments.  Good income potential there as well, but I think it would be awesome to convert one of them into the "Scotch Room," a nicely done conference room that could be rented out for everything from weddings to local meetings to even fantasy football players wanting to watch games and the other could be an apartment, a vacation rental, an office, you name it...
In the back of the building there are a few studio spaces that could easily be converted into the kitchen and brewery area for the business.  This would allow for some major publicity as people would love to walk in the back door from the East Bay Suites to get a beer and a sandwich... which gets me to the next item!

The Menu:

So, what do people want?  A nice place, a decent price.  What else have people wanted in this community for some time?
1. A bakery--I have talked to AT LEAST 50 people who want a bread bakery in town.  The coop wants this too.
2. A sausage maker-- The grocery stores have picked up the slack with this, but there was once "The Sausage Guy" in Shroeder who did tremendous business providing gourmet brats and sausages to the restaurants on the North Shore... Time to start it up!
*So, we do this:  A simple menu, some appetizers, nice sandwiches on fresh baked bread, designer brats and sausages along with delicious locally brewed beers.  Sounds pretty good, huh?

The Price:
Well, again, as with any good idea there is a catch.  The building is worth about $300,000 at the absolute max, probably more like $250,000, but it is listed for almost $600,000.  That is the first hurdle.  Second hurdle would be getting the spaces ready to be used for the restaurant and brewery.  We are talking maybe $50,000 for that too.  Brewing and baking equipment: another $250,000+.  This all crunched out means that we would have to earn about $7000/month in order to service the loan on the building, not to mention operating capital and payroll.  So, we would need to roll about $120,000/year minimum to make it fly.  Can we do that?  I think so.  One of the other night spots in town turned almost $2,000,000 in revenues last year, I think that we could get some of that, especially if our products were good.

Who is involved:
Well, at this point no one is really involved because this is a bit of a pipe dream!  I spoke with a fellow beer lover who has a background in financial planning who said that we would need to either find some kind of an angel investor or we would have to organize a consortium of investors who would be interested in taking responsibility for part of the overall debt, kind of like a co-signer on a mortgage.  Any ideas guys?  Any takers??

The bottom line:
I see this as an amazing opportunity and a great idea.  Time to get some numbers and maybe do some surveying to find out if people really want/need something like this in town.  It doesn't have to be in the Broadway building, but I think it would be a good fit.

As always, if you have any ideas about this, drop me a line or a comment.  I am always open to conversation, whether it be over a Scotch or not...

Concrete Cloth: Why didn't I think of that!?

Probably because I am not a chemical engineer...

Anyway, have you heard about this stuff?  If you haven't, you should. I stumbled upon concrete canvas when I was looking for another solution for a quickly deployed, minimally structurally intensive low-income housing solution.  Turns out the company designed shelters made out of this stuff so that they could get refugees into suitable housing quickly in the event of a natural disaster.  Weird thing is that when they return to these refugee locations years later they are finding that the concrete canvas shelters are not only still there, but have been continuously inhabited and are standing up to the elements remarkably well.

The beauty of this stuff is that it is basically already reinforced.  It doesn't need any iron bar or mesh to hold it together.  It has two layers of really strong synthetic canvas holding it together and then the rest of the thickness of the product is an interwoven matrix of hollow tubes impregnated with dry concrete mix.  Dang.  That is soooo incredibly smart.  Picture thousands of interwoven pixie sticks... except they are full of concrete.  You get it wet, it cures in the shape that is given and badabing.  You have yourself a finished project!

It is being used in the UK for ditches, water erosion, even putting down foundations for structures... oooh, that sounds intriguing! Since it rolls out like cloth and is moldable, you could use it for just about anything.  

The problem:  well... as with any new technology, there are some costs involved.  

First of all, there is one company making this stuff in the entire world.  Their headquarters is located in a medium sized town in south Wales, and they can only make so much of it.  They have one distributor in the US as of right now even though they are prepping to enter the US market, thus their product is extremely expensive!  One of the shelters that they make, which provides 852 sq ft, costs around $30,000!  Yikes!  Since they mainly get government contracts in England and Wales, they have no need to lower their prices either because the governments get a good deal because it lessens man-power/wages.  

With all of that said though, they have won dozens of awards and are producing this stuff with almost the same invested energy of traditional concrete, which is still a lot, but this product doesn't need any more energy put into it once it is manufactured!  

This stuff also weighs more than a literal ton... actually about two tons for one of the shelters.  A roll of this stuff is so heavy that it requires special loading and rolling equipment to get it to the worksite.  Once it is there though, two workers can pull it off the roll or stake one end down and just drive the loader away and it will unroll itself.

Will this change the game for housing?  Probably not.  Not unless we can find a way to get it locally or manufacture it locally so we don't have to ship it thousands of miles to use it.  Will this change the game for other applications?  I am sure that it already is.  The name of the game is going to be local production though.  So, if Concrete Canvas wants to start up a manufacturing plant in Minnesota I think that would be awesome.

Just think of all of the cool practical jokes you could do with this stuff too!  

The Free Cabin: What, Where, How?

 The other day I saw on the local bulletin board, Boreal, that someone was selling/getting rid of a small 13'x17' cabin up by Devil Track Lake.  It was the original cabin on the lakeshore, but now the family has rebuilt and just need the structure out of there.  I called the person and went out to take a look at it and I was really excited by the structure.  Problem is I can't figure out WHERE to put it that would be a good fit!

A little about the structure:
The building is a pretty solidly built stick-framed (2x6) shed-roofed situation.  It has single glazed windows in it, which would likely have to be replaced, but the inside is just WAITING to be stripped down, insulated, paneled, and beautified!  Imagine your own little sauna shack!  But oh, I am getting ahead of myself...

 It has a shed roof on it, meaning that it has one angle to the roof.  Pretty popular with cabin builders of old because it required less wood and hardware than other methods.  It has a nice rustic aesthetic to it as well.  Because of the shed roof we would be able to trailer it without too much trouble, but to where!?

Ok, let's get to the nitty gritty:
I want this thing for a sauna.  It is too big for a sauna i.e. it will NOT fit in my backyard.  Also, in order to get this thing in good enough shape to be a sauna I would have to a.) strip it out b.) insulate it c.) build a drain in the floor d.) put in a chimney (or wire it for electricity, which would likely happen anyway) e.) build a sauna room and changing rooms f.) you get the picture... a lot of work.

What else could it be used for?  Is there anyone out there that needs a project cabin or something to put on some rural land?  I had initially thought that I could put it on a trailer and have it as a "really big tiny house" that I could rent out to people buying land until they have their home built, but it is legally 1 foot 6 inches too wide for that!  I am sure that I could work something out to get that all squared away though!

It is set up on nice square timbers so moving it wouldn't be too much of a problem, but getting it to sit on a trailer and be properly attached?  Umm, that might be a bit of a chore.

Let's talk planning and zoning for a little bit... riveting I know!  You learn a lot about these things when you are living in a yurt... Up here in Cook County you can put a building like this out in the woods without a foundation with only a special use permit.  If you want to live in it full time then you are starting to look at more technicalities (septic, homestead, etc) and thus I think it would be worth your time to put in a foundation and get it registered as a structure.  I am looking for alternatives though!

 So that is the question of the day, friends.  What can this little gem of a historic North Woods cabin be used for?  How can it be reclaimed/repurposed?  If someone comes up with a really good option other than what I mentioned in the blog I would love to help make it happen!