HERMIT_CLUB_FINLEY.JPG

Bob Finley, president of the Hermit Club, stands by a window in the private club's dining room on Tuesday. The club's Tudor-style building, tucked behind PlayhouseSquare in downtown Cleveland, will be incorporated into a Hofbrauhaus restaurant and brewery with nearly 1,700 seats. Finley said the club hopes to retain its exclusivity but reduce dues and attract more members as a result of the Hofbrauhaus deal.

(Gus Chan, The Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- An $8.4 million project proposed for downtown Cleveland's theater district could marry a Hofbrauhaus, a 400-year-old German institution, with the Hermit Club, a century-old private club dedicated to amateur performing arts.

Cincinnati Restaurant Group, Inc., which built the nation's first licensed Hofbrauhaus 10 years ago, plans to wrap a restaurant and entertainment venue around the Hermit Club, at the northern edge of PlayhouseSquare. Sketches show a 660-seat hall and a 1,000-seat beer garden facing Chester Avenue, off Dodge Court.

The project, on land owned by the theater district's real estate arm, marks the first serious effort to drive development north -- toward a challenging urban pocket that includes the city's Greyhound bus station and surface parking lots. PlayhouseSquare leaders see the Hofbrauhaus as another entertainment venue, one they hope will lure more young people to the neighborhood and strengthen the often-overlooked Hermit Club.

"It activates the north campus, where in the past Chester was our back door," said Art Falco, president and chief executive officer of the PlayhouseSquare Foundation. "With all the residential development occurring, we're going to see this as a perfect complement."

A conceptual rendering shows a possible design for the Cleveland Hofbrauhaus, a restaurant, entertainment venue and beer garden planned for the northern edge of downtown's theater district. Cincinnati Restaurant Group, Inc., which opened the nation's first Hofbrauhaus 10 years ago, hopes to start construction on the Cleveland project within months. (The rendering is labeled incorrectly -- this view actually is from the northwest, looking southeast.)

The original Hofbrauhaus opened in Munich, Germany, in 1589 and is still operating. Owned by the state of Bavaria, the brewery attracts millions of visitors each year and is famous for its massive Oktoberfest tent and beer gardens.

The Cleveland restaurant will brew Hofbrau beer on site, adhering to German purity laws and using the brand's hops, malts and yeast. With a German-trained brewer and chef, the Hofbrauhaus will serve food as it's prepared and served in Munich, said Andis "Andi" Udris, chief executive officer of the Cincinnati Restaurant Group.

Udris, a former Cleveland and Cincinnati economic-development director, recruited the first Hofbrauhaus to downtown Cincinnati -- technically Newport, Ky. -- in 2003. That was two years before Ferdinand "Fred" Schumacher, a fifth-generation German brewer living in Frankenmuth, Mich., obtained rights to oversee Hofbrau franchising across the United States.

Now there are four major restaurants, in Cincinnati (a sister city to Munich), Las Vegas, the Chicago area and Pittsburgh. Four more, in Cleveland, Milwaukee, Columbus and Buffalo, could open next year. Schumacher said he fields many requests from would-be franchisees -- and rejects most of them because the operators or locations aren't quite right.

Udris recently returned to Cleveland to work as a business consultant for the chamber of commerce and to bring a beer hall here. Schumacher and Maximilian Erlmeier, a former Hofbrauhaus Munich executive and chairman of Cincinnati Restaurant Group, joined him downtown this week to finalize the franchise agreement for the project.

Cleveland, they said, makes sense as a site for a large Hofbrauhaus because of its love of beer, eastern European ties, growing downtown population and nearby universities and attractions. The Bistro Group, based in Cincinnati, will manage the restaurant.

For Clevelanders who remember the old Hofbrau Haus, which operated for 40 years on East 55th Street, the downtown project will blend new experiences with nostalgia. The Hofbrau Haus, run by German immigrant Steve Bencic, imported Hofbrau beer but never produced it on-site. It had no official ties to Munich.

Michael Jordan, left, and Bill Bartel, right, talk over drinks at the Hermit Club on Tuesday. Cincinnati Restaurant Group hopes to incorporate the historic building at 1629 Dodge Court into a huge Hofbrauhaus restaurant and beer garden facing Chester Avenue.

That restaurant closed in 2000 and was demolished two years later.

The PlayhouseSquare Hofbrauhaus will feature indoor entertainment, with local German musicians and other performers. As in Munich, patrons will be encouraged to stand on their seats and sing. Outside, the beer garden will offer a more tranquil atmosphere.

"It's a trip to Germany without leaving the U.S.," Udris said.

Erlmeier added: "And in the beer garden, it's a small holiday."

Udris hopes to close on the project financing, which includes a Small Business Administration loan and more than $4 million in equity, within three months. Separately, he's talking to the city of Cleveland about a possible $400,000 low-interest loan to pay for some of the brewing equipment.

"We've just had some initial discussions on this one," said Tracey Nichols, the city's economic-development director. "We're very supportive. ... With this one on the East Side and the Hansa Brewery (being built) on the West Side, I think it will be great to support all of our eastern European descendants who are in Cleveland."

The Cleveland City Planning Commission is likely to see plans for the project next week. Jeff Martin of Geis Construction, a Streetsboro design-build business with German roots, confirmed in an email Tuesday that the Geis Cos. are the architect and builder.

Construction could start in October, with an opening set for summer 2014.

For the Hermit Club, the next year will be a dramatic transition. The club owns its Tudor-style building, a city landmark, but rents the land underneath from a PlayhouseSquare affiliate. That ground lease expires next year, and PlayhouseSquare plans to lease the property, and the parking lot to the north, to Brauhaus Cleveland LLC.

In turn, the Hermit Club will lease its private spaces from the Hofbrauhaus. Members will keep their private bar but, for the first time, will share their performance stage and other areas of the building. The club has roughly 120 members, who pay dues and gather several times a month for jazz concerts, orchestra performances and other events.

"If we can maintain the exclusivity that I think we will have with the Hofbrauhaus, I think that we'll be fine," said President Bob Finley, who joined the club in the early 1980s when it had more than 400 members. "Change is inevitable. The club is 109 years old, and we've been holding our own for quite a few years. I would say we're up for a challenge, and I think it's a new beginning for the Hermit Club."

At the club's request, the Hofbrauhaus Cleveland menu will include one distinctly non-German item amid the pretzels and schnitzel: Lobster bisque, the signature dish in the Hermits' small dining room.

On Twitter: @mjarboe

Subscribe on Facebook: MichelleJarboeMcFee