Great Lakes Brewing Co.

Great Lakes Brewing Co., based in Ohio City, has purchased eight acres on nearby Scranton Peninsula in the Flats for a potential expansion.

(Gus Chan/Plain Dealer file)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Great Lakes Brewing Co. has ended its years-long real estate search by purchasing eight acres on Scranton Peninsula for a potential expansion project.

Property records show that Great Lakes bought the land Friday for an undisclosed price.

The site is an inland one, near the base of the peninsula along Carter Road. But the deal also provides the homegrown brewery the opportunity to use - and an option to buy - adjacent property along the west bank of the Cuyahoga River.

The acquisition is a titanic step for Great Lakes, said Bill Boor, the chief executive officer. But there's no guarantee, yet, that the company will push ahead with construction of a second production facility to supplement its landlocked, longtime operations in nearby Ohio City.

"We still have a ways to go before we can tell people that we're doing a project," he said, declining to speculate on the cost, size and other details of the possible development.

"If I had a timeline, I'd tell you," he said, "but I'm really not putting one on this process at this point. There's a lot of ways this could go. We could create a design for a great brewery and then decide the time's not right from a commercial perspective."

Great Lakes, which sells roughly 150,000 barrels of beer a year to customers in 13 states and Washington, D.C., is trying to balance its growth aspirations against the frothy nature of the increasingly competitive craft-beer market.

The privately held company employs 250 people, most of them at its brewery and restaurant off West 25th Street. Those Ohio City operations will stay put, Boor said, regardless of what happens in the Flats.

He said it made sense to buy land now for two reasons. First, the company has studied Scranton Peninsula enough to feel comfortable - and optimistic. Second, the sellers, an investor group led by developer Fred Geis and partners Jesse Grant and Matthew Weiner, needed a decision from Great Lakes before they could finish fine-tuning broader plans for the peninsula.

"We're delighted about it. We think we're off to a great start," said Weiner, a Savannah, Georgia-based attorney who oversees the East West Alliance, a group of companies that structures and manages complicated real estate deals.

After the brewery deal, the partners still own approximately 17 acres. The balance of the peninsula belongs to Scranton-Averell, Inc., which through various entities has controlled land there since 1828.

The Geis-Grant-Weiner property, across the river from Tower City, is vacant and overgrown. But the developers envision a mixed-use transformation that's heavy on housing and light on retail. The Great Lakes facilities would go beyond manufacturing to include a consumer-facing component, such as a taproom.

"I think our approach to the site is substantially similar to what it always has been," said Grant, who works in real estate in Cleveland and is shepherding planning aspects of the project. "But now, with the Great Lakes transfer, we're able to have a more dedicated focus. ... There's a significant portion of the site that's going to be taken up by their future operations. Our goal is to kind of work hand-in-hand, with that as the initial kickoff as the whole."

Grant said the developers might be able to say more about their overall vision for the peninsula within a few months. They're expecting the development to incorporate a park or trails and to connect to the surrounding trail network and existing and planned green spaces.

"We have aspirations to make this a modern, urban neighborhood that does the site justice," he said.