News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Left to right: Curt Kallberg, Wade Underwood, Mac Hay, Marlys Underwood, Victoria Graves, Hobbs Magaret, Patti Cordoni and Darryl Tewalt celebrate the groundbreaking for a new brewing facility.
Three Creeks Brewing Co. owner Wade Underwood, along with business associates, construction crew leaders, and friends, gathered in the Sisters Industrial Park on Monday morning to celebrate the groundbreaking on a new brewing facility.
The facility will allow Three Creeks Brewing Co. to support its pub in Sisters and expand its reach in the competitive craft beer market in Central Oregon and the rest of the Northwest.
The groundbreaking was for the first phase of a multi-phase project that can be scaled up according to the volume of business the beer generates. The first phase is expected to be completed by the end of the year. Underwood said that realistically it will be January before the plant is producing beer. The first phase will employ approximately five full-time workers. At build-out, the project could produce some 20,0000 barrels of beer a year and employ 15-20 people.
The project has been more than two years in the making. The Sisters City Council approved an incentive package in May of 2012 to help ensure that the project went forward in Sisters. That package included incentives available through the Redmond-Sisters Enterprise Zone and an ongoing reduction in sewer rates up to a maximum of $10,000. The incentive package was designed to bring Sisters into equivalency with Redmond in terms of cost to the business in operating here.
The assemblage expressed satisfaction that the project could go forward in the brewery's hometown.
"I'm so happy that this is happening here instead of in Redmond," said Victoria Graves of Three Creeks Brewing Co., a sentiment with which all on hand concurred.
The project is also employing Sisters contractors. Tewalt & Sons is handling the site excavation; Kallberg Construction will build the facility.
Craft brewing has become a signature industry in Central Oregon, with more than two dozen breweries in operation in the region and numerous festivals celebrating the many qualities of beer.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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