Saucy Brew Works pulls out of Independence expansion project

To the disappointment of local officials, Saucy Brew Works has pulled out of a large expansion project in Independence that was expected to serve as the craft brewery’s new corporate headquarters.

Instead, Saucy CEO Brent Zimmerman said his company will be working on expanding operations at its flagship Ohio City facility that opened in 2017.

“We were super excited about that location. We spent a lot of time and effort on what we thought was going to be a gorgeous brewpub and manufacturing facility in an amazing location,” Zimmerman said. “But life changes pretty quickly all the time, and a new opportunity came up. We are just as excited about reducing costs and having an amazing asset to sell and help grow the company.”

Details about Saucy’s Independence project first came out around the late summer of 2019.

Plans called for the construction of an approximately 26,000-square-foot facility featuring a restaurant, taproom, production brewery, event space, large outdoor area and corporate offices.

Saucy purchased for $2.1 million a 3.2-acre site in the city — located off I-77 on Rockside Boulevard near the I-480 exchange and a Topgolf facility that opened in 2019 — for the project.

However, a number of delays kept construction from commencing.

A groundbreaking once expected to take place around late 2019 or early 2020 continued to be pushed back. In early 2021, Zimmerman said he was hopeful the site would start to be developed later that summer and that the space could potentially open between fall 2022 and spring 2023.

Zimmerman chalked up the setbacks in part to the pandemic, which impacted the construction industry at large.

Regardless, the Independence project, estimated to cost between $15 million and $20 million, never got off the ground.

According to planning commission meeting minutes from spring 2021, Zimmerman said this was due in large part to Saucy’s onetime construction partner, Independence Construction, falling off the project. Zimmerman said he would not speculate as to why or what happened there. But Saucy had been looking for another construction partner since 2019.

Jessica Hyser, economic development director for Independence, said that while Saucy did receive approval for its project in 2019, if a given project is not started within six months of receiving approval, materials for the project must be resubmitted.

Resubmitting project materials was brought up at a March 2021 planning commission meeting where Independence officials asked Saucy to go back before the architecture review board to secure requisite approvals and permits once again. A reason this was brought up is because Saucy was showing plans at the time that included a drive-thru not previously included in the original specs that could be used for pickup of at least coffee and food items — think of a Starbucks or Dunkin’ drive-thru that opens as early as 7 a.m. — and possibly even packaged beer.

But that was all last spring. Since then, Zimmerman said Saucy was able to buy out the TITLE Boxing Club that was occupying a space at the company’s Ohio City building on Detroit Avenue.

This is the new opportunity that he said popped up.

Now, instead of building a new production facility in Independence, Saucy is looking to grow into the recently vacated space in its current building.

“I thought TITLE would be there 10 years-plus. So that was amazing. It just fell in our lap,” Zimmerman said. “That got us to switch gears and save a lot of money to accomplish similar things without building a building with crazy prices on every commodity you can imagine.”

The Independence site owned by Saucy is now up for sale. It’s being listed by CRESCO Real Estate for a sale price of $3.2 million. The property was previously listed at $2.5 million when it was acquired by Saucy for $2.1 million.

“We are disappointed that the project isn’t moving forward here in Independence, but we will work with Mr. Zimmerman and his brokerage firm to identify a potential user and support development of this property,” Hyser said. “We’d like to find a user to complement the needs of both our business community and residents.”

Zimmerman said he expects to apply proceeds from that property sale to the expansion of operations in Ohio City.

He said equipment costs for building a second production facility in Independence were pushing toward $6 million alone, but expanding brewery capacity in Ohio City may cost more like $2 million.

The Ohio City brewhouse produces approximately 15,000 barrels of beer annually. Zimmerman envisions an expansion there that would tentatively increase output to about 35,000 barrels.

Increasing beer production is important for Saucy as it continues to expand its physical and distribution footprints.

Besides its Ohio City brewery and taproom, Saucy also has locations in the Pinecrest development in Orange Village (which marked the debut of Saucy Coffee), Columbus and Detroit.

Meanwhile, Saucy is looking to break ground this spring for a taproom in Charlotte, North Carolina, that features an adjacent, seven-room Airbnb.

Zimmerman said the company is also working on finalizing details for a potential location in Nashville — in a location that was once a firehouse — and a second location in Columbus.

“We are beyond excited about the locations on the radar for us now where we’re looking to expand,” Zimmerman said.