City council voted unanimously Monday night to authorize the land transfer essential to finalize the city’s deal with Stone Brewing Company.
City council voted unanimously Monday night to authorize the land transfer essential to finalize the city’s deal with Stone Brewing Company.
The land will be used for the restaurant and beer garden at the company’s Richmond brewery, Stone’s first on the East Coast.
“The place that Stone selected to be an east coast hub was an entire project making up of a world-class brewery, a bistro and gardens,” Craig Spitz, Stone Brewing CFO, said. “The vote tonight really completes that project and lets us know that coming to Richmond we’ll be able to do the whole project and not just a piece of it.”
Spitz returned to city council for the special meeting to decide the fate of the Stone deal. He brought with him Stone Brewing CEO and co-founder Greg Koch (pictured above with CFO Spitz). On the agenda were two ordinances in relation to the Stone deal.
The second ordinance up was the land transfer. The measure moved the Intermediate Terminal Building, currently valued at $1 million, from the city to the Economic Development Authority (EDA).
Before public comment City Council President Mosby announced that every member of city council was in favor of the resolution.
Jon Ondrak is the Chief Operation Officer at Fulton Hill Properties, the local development group linked to the project. He also returned to council, once again asking those in favor of the measure to stand. The vast majority of those present in the meeting stood.
Much of public comment in the meeting was positive, but some local business owners were in opposition to the measure. Buz Grossberg, owner of Buz & Ned’s Real Barbecue, was among those in opposition.
“I spent a long time growing my business from scratch,” Grossberg said. “We have never been offered a deal putting a restaurant in Richmond. We have sought the help of the city at one time, and we were pretty much ignored.”
Every member of City Council spoke to the ordinance before voting, assuring the audience that the deal was a good move for the city. Councilman Samuels said that he hoped the next big deal for the city would be better sorted out before coming in front of the council, and hoped for transparency in the matters.
The sentiment of transparency was echoed by City Council Vice President Chris Hilbert.
“I believe we are the most open government in central Virginia,” said Hilbert. “No question about that.”
The first ordinance was an amendment to the resolution that brought Stone to Richmond. With that resolution, the council placed certain restrictions on how the EDA can spend the revenue from the project. These oversight amendments passed unanimously.
The final item on the agenda allowed the transfer of the former Armstrong High School to the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority for the future development of mixed income housing.
The ordinance passed unanimously, barring councilman Hilbert, who abstained from voting. Hilbert is employed by the Virginia Housing Development Authority, who are involved in the planning process for the site.
