INGHAM COUNTY, MI — The man who started one of the most popular craft beer bars in the world has got some exciting things brewing in Michigan's capitol.



Next year, Mark Sellers plans to not only open a new brewpub across from the stadium where the Lansing Lugnuts play baseball, he's simultaneously opening a second HopCat beer bar in downtown East Lansing.



The Grand Rapids bar owner, a lifelong Spartan fan and graduate of Michigan State University's Broad College of Business, announced the plans this week after signing letters of intent with two different landlords on what's projected to be about a $3 million combined project.



"Lansing and East Lansing have thousands of residents who are passionate about good beer and good food, but the markets seem under-served," said Sellers, who, with his wife Michele, own popular bars HopCat, Stella's Lounge, McFadden's and the Grand Rapids Brewing Co., opening Dec. 5, under holding company BarFly Ventures LLC.



"It just seemed like it would be easier to do two at once."



The new HopCat East Lansing will anchor the ground floor of what will eventually become East Lansing's tallest building, an 8-story mixed-use project called The Residences, located a block from campus at 211 Ann St. The bar will have 100 craft beers on tap, more than double the 48 taps at the GrandRapids HopCat, making the new bar's draft selection the largest in the state.



The full-menu Lansing Brewing Co. will be located on the ground floor of the new mixed-use Stadium District Apartments building at 500 E. Michigan Ave, across from Cooley Law School Stadium. The new 10-barrel system brewpub, which fills a 6,400 square-foot vacant space that has never been occupied on the development's northwest corner, revives the name of a brewery that operated in Lansing between 1898 and 1914.

"We're thrilled," said Rachel Michaud, vice president of The Gillespie Group, which opened the 100,000 square-foot, four-story Stadium District development in 2008. The brewpub will bookend a ground floor with a new Biggby Coffee franchise on the east end.



"We always wanted a really cool bar-type user in that space," she said. "We've had some offers for office use but we stuck to our guns. We wanted to see some energy because it's a high impact corner."



Michaud praised Sellers, who was labeled a 'beer guru' by the Detroit Free Press in a May profile. She called the Grand Rapids bar owner, who is also a successful hedge fund chairman with controlling salvage rights to the Titanic, a "trend-leader" who could bring a brewery to the Lansing market at a time when the Michigan craft beer industry is surging in overall market share.

"Our mission is is to continue to help grow the whole area," she said.

Sellers said the Free Press story prompted calls from prospective landlords all over the state looking to convince him to open a HopCat in their building. Gillespie’s location, though, felt right.

Sellers spent the summer months negotiating a long-term lease with several options to renew. The location across from the ballpark in a mixed-use development near several other bars “kind of reminds me a little bit of Ionia Street five years ago,” he said.

"I like critical mass. I really like when there's other stuff nearby that's different but similar," he said. "I like it when there's other bars around as long as they are not the same as mine."



In East Lansing, Sellers said he is benefiting from the build-out taking place in The Residences project, being developed by Cron Management LLC of East Lansing. Representatives of that company did not return calls.

The development, a mixture of residential apartments and commercial space, is being constructed at the corner of Albert Avenue and Grove Street, within shouting distance of many other bars, restaurants and shops popular with Michigan State students.



The 6,110 square-foot HopCat East Lansing will cater to the same adventurous craft beer lover as the Grand Rapids location, but the atmosphere will reflect the modern structure it occupies, he said.

The original HopCat, located on a prime corner in Grand Rapids' historic Heartside neighborhood, opened in 2008 in the former Sierra Room. The bar has a legion of Facebook fans, a committed staff, a 'chief beer geek' who recently consulted with the public museum on a beer history exhibit, and gets rave reviews by craft beer connoisseurs who make it a regular stop.

HopCat has been rated the No. 3 Beer Bar on Planet Earth by Beer Advocate magazine and the No. 2 Beer Bar in America by the readers of CraftBeer.com.

The East Lansing food menu will be a mash of greatest hits from Sellers' BarFly properties in Grand Rapids. "There will be crack fries," said Sellers. The beer list will be all draft, but no bottled beers. There will also not be an on-site brewery.



"I never designed HopCat to be franchised or wanted to start a chain," said Sellers. "I don't like the cookie cutter concept. I'm making a place where I'd want to hang out myself." He never could have recreated HopCat in other Michigan cities like Muskegon or Kalamazoo because "I don't know those cities. I spent 11 years in East Lansing."



Construction on the Lansing Brewing Co. will begin in February, and on the East Lansing HopCat in March. The two projects aim to be open by late summer 2013, depending on final lease negotiations.

The two projects are expected to create about 100 new jobs between them.

Email Garret Ellison or follow him on Twitter.