Grain Bin Brewing Company has announced in a Facebook post that they are interested in moving in to the old Fire Hall in downtown Grande Prairie. The company has been operating without a storefront location since the fall, around the time they submitted a proposal to the city to purchase the fire hall.
The matter will go before a city committee Tuesday which will be the first time councillors and the mayor will get to see the proposals and discuss the benefits. The plans have so far gone through city staffers who scored them based on a set formula. After that process one of the three applicants had been eliminated, the brewery was given a score of 57.5 and the other proposal from Equity Rentals scored 75.8.
Equity Rentals is proposing to convert the bay space into a restaurant and want to add a third floor to the office tower for their office needs.
Grain Bin says they have “ambitious plans” for the space and would hope to make it a “community hub” in the downtown core. They say they do not plan to open a restaurant but are looking at way to incorporate food trucks or other already established local eateries into their would-be retail location.
Though the brewery out-bid Equity Rentals the forecast economic impact of the rental company is more than double that of the brewery. The building’s assessed value is just over $1.3 million, Grain Bin Brewery submitted a bid of $900,000 compared to Equity Rentals bid of $855,000.