Two types of equity — old-fashioned sweat equity familiar to the West Side and new-breed crowdfunding that uses an Internet platform to find investors — are going into a plan to resurrect a one-time beer garden as part of a brewery in Cleveland's Duck Island.

Originally, the partners planning to open the Forest City Brewery and beer-tasting pub wanted a different site, but Sammy Catania, a staffer at the Tremont West Development Corp. nonprofit, showed them a subdued gray commercial building on the southeast corner of Columbus Road and Freeman Avenue. In 1915, the timber frame warehouse had gone in atop a site that housed the Silberberg Bros. Beer Garden from 1880 to 1900. Jay Demagall, a partner in the Forest City Brewery venture, said the group was sold when it found that part of the beer garden — now a grassy yard — still exists. Demagall was interviewed recently during a break from the physically demanding work required to bring Forest City Brewery to life. He had just finished painting a bench in the former open-air beer garden. His next task was going inside to perch atop a cherry picker to resume vacuuming the timbers forming the property's ceiling. A 1927 Chevrolet truck and old wooden ice boxes also have been wheeled in. Those and other steps are the sweat equity tack, long familiar in Tremont and Ohio City residential restoration efforts. The other equity comes from not just one, but two, crowdfunding campaigns. The first, through Kickstarter, raised $24,000 to buy brewery equipment. The second — a plan to raise $250,000 for a loan for improvements to the buildings interior — is underway in a campaign by Vestor, a Cleveland-based real estate crowdfunding platform to raise debt or equity for property development projects. Vestor is limited to accredited investors under Securities and Exchange Commission laws. “We were starting to look for loans but (then) learned about Vestor,” Demagall said. “Part of our concept is to work with local companies in every aspect of our business. Working with Vestor allows us the freedom to work with other local entrepreneurs raising capital through local investors.” The project requires about $1 million to get off the ground, which comes, in part, from yet another, more traditional, type of equity: the group's own cash. Demagall said he and his three partners have substantial investments of their own in the project, though he declined to say how much. “We decided to put the money to work locally rather than a mutual fund somewhere,” Demagall said. Besides the indoor beer tasting area, microbrewery and 20-seat outdoor beer garden, plans call for the building to be decorated to resemble a 19th century beer garden. It also would house two other startups as tenants — one a coffee maker and a mead maker. Demagall said his investor group, known as CBGC LLC, plans to close on the purchase of the building by month's end. Cory Riordan, Tremont West executive director, said the property is zoned to allow the beer garden and brewery concept. He said Duck Island neighbors accepted the plan as preferable to having the building sit largely empty. Another bonus is that a derelict wood-frame house dating from 1880 on Freeman next to the beer garden space will be demolished. “The house has been discussed as a problem at more block club meetings than we can count,” Riordan said. “The Duck Island master plan also calls for more density on Columbus and Abbey Avenue than on interior streets. This taps into the story of what is happening (nearby) with breweries on West 25th Street. We still have fewer breweries than we had before Prohibition.” Demagall said his partners also plan to make the most of the frame house that will be razed. The wooden joists that form the house's walls will be repurposed into chairs and tables for the operation. Plans call for Forest City Brewery, which takes its name from a brewery that once operated on the Huron Road side of what is now the Tower City Center complex, to open next March, Demagall said.