Shipyard Brewing Company is planning to open a multimillion-dollar packing facility in Hooksett, a project that caught the surprise of many in the area when news broke earlier this week.
Town officials in Hooksett were among those caught off-guard by an article published in a beer industry trade publication, Brewbound, reporting Shipyard’s plan for a $36 million facility located between Interstate 93 and the Merrimack River.
If the plan in Hooksett goes flat for any reason, at least one neighboring town would hope to have a shot at Shipyard’s business.
Bow Town Manager David Stack said the town would “be very interested in a project with Shipyard and their partners.”
“There is property available and the town has plenty of water available from the town’s municipal water system,” he said in an email. “A second well has been approved by (the state Department of Environmental Services) in case it is needed in the future.”
Hooksett Town Administrator Dean Shankle told the Monitor on Friday that Shipyard still has to file paperwork and meet with the planning board and possibly the zoning board before the project can move forward.
“We’d love to have a brewery up there,” he said. “At this point, we’re just waiting for more information.”
Shipyard founder Fred Forsley told Brewbound that the plan is “full speed ahead” and hopes the project will be completed by 2020. Shankle said that timeline seems like an “aggressive schedule, but I wouldn’t say it can’t be done.”
Shipyard has partnered with Boston-based Valencia Realty Capital and State Street Realty Advisors on the project. Nicolas Warren, an analyst with Valencia, said the project has received “positive support from conversations with Hooksett in these early stages.”
“Nicholas Williams, the Town Planner, is aware of the development,” Warren wrote in an email. “Studies and surveys have been performed and the specific engineered plans will not be submitted until completed. This will take time.”
“Pre-development is underway and significant investment has been made by the partners in preparation for the formal permitting process,” he added. “We take this environmental and community process seriously and will submit the plans when they are completed.”
The speed of the process hinges on how soon Shipyard files its proposal with the town, Shankle said, and how comprehensive their plan is.
“If they come in with a fully developed plan that meets our zoning and planning requirements, you can move a project along like that,” he said. “If there are a lot of issues, water issues and things like that, it may take longer.”
At this point, Shipyard has not filed formal paperwork with the town. A representative from the company reached out to the town earlier this year inquiring about the space at 39 Hackett Hill Road, across the street from Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers.
The company is eyeing a 50-acre space between Interstate 93 and the Merrimack River, just north of Tri-Town Ice Arena and south of the toll plaza in Hooksett. The facility would be approximately 100,000-square-feet sitting on five acres and have the capacity to package as much as 300,000 barrels of product for as many as 60 different companies, according to Brewbound.
It is not clear if the facility will produce Shipyard’s beer but Forsley told Brewbound it will produce some of Shipyard’s distilled products, such as Ice Pik Vodka and Fred’s Whiskey.
Concord Chamber of Commerce President Tim Sink wasn’t surprised when he heard the plan for the facility possibly coming to the capital region.
“I’m a fan of craft beers, and just the explosion of that market is such that a facility like this doesn’t surprise me,” Sink said Thursday. “I think it is innovative and taking advantage of that particular curve in the marketplace.”
Shipyard, based out of Portland, Maine, has production facilities across Maine, Vermont, Florida and New York. Last year, the company produced about 93,000 barrels of beer, down from its peak of 166,000 barrels in 2013, according to Brewbound. Forsley told the publication that business has “leveled out” in the U.S. while it is seeing an uptick in sales in the U.K.
Email and phone messages left with Shipyard were not returned Thursday or Friday.
(Nick Stoico can be reached at 369-3321 or nstoico@cmonitor.com.)