Breweries do not have any specific performance standards in Jacksonville’s Zoning Code, in fact they are not mentioned at all. Since the opening of Bold City Brewery in 2008, City officials have tried to shoehorn microbreweries into the existing Code. The local interpretation has chosen to consider breweries as ‘light manufacturing’ facilities (IL- Industrial Light) within the City’s Zoning Code. In that respect, a craft brewery is in the same zoning category as paint storage facilities, scrap processing facilities and freight terminals. These kinds of businesses generally have location constraints, as most would agree that having a paint manufacturing plant adjacent to residential homes is less than ideal due to sound, smell and pollution concerns. However in the same context, who would want to buy beer brewed next to a pesticide plant?
Therein lies the problem for Jacksonville’s growing craft brewing industry. The City’s land use policies treats a small, 4,000 square foot production facility and taproom like Jacksonville Beach’s Green Room Brewing that produces 1,500 barrels of beer a year in the same lens as the 205-acre Anheuser-Busch factory operating 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and producing 9 million barrels a year on Jacksonville’s Northside.
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On the left: Green Room Brewing in Jacksonville Beach. On the right: Anheuser-Busch in Jacksonville’s Northside.
Further complicating the viability of operating a craft brewery in Jacksonville, is that IL buildings cannot dedicate more than 10% of their total floor area to retail sale operations (which includes taprooms). That means that a craft brewery operating in a 6,000 square foot building could have a tap room no larger than 600 square feet. On-site tap rooms where brewers can sell their products directly to the public (as opposed to selling their product to bars, restaurants and retailers through a third party distribution network) are a critical component of to the economic viability of startup brewing operations. The economics of distribution, putting more degrees of separation between the producer and end user, puts a squeeze on profit margins in a capital-intensive business like a brewery. To make money within such a construct, breweries need to produce a sufficient scale of product. As such, craft breweries have heavily relied on sales from on-site tap rooms to help offset their significant capital investments. Limiting the size of on-site tap rooms could be the difference as to whether opening a brewery is financially viable or not.
Aardwolf Brewery in San Marco chose to purse a lengthy and expensive process of obtaining a PUD in 2013 before undertaking an extensive renovation process of converting a long-vacant building that was once home to a municipal ice house serving the city of South Jacksonville. Image courtesy of Metrojacksonville.com
Many commercially-zoned properties in Jacksonville fall under the CCG-1 classification, a more catch-all general commercial use. As previously mentioned, breweries are not specifically defined in the City’s Code, however one could make the case that microbreweries could fall under the following use permitted as a CCG-1 property “Assembly of components and light manufacturing when in conjunction with a retail sales or service establishment, conducted without outside storage or display.” A brewery located on CCG-1 property, if interpreted in this manner, would have no limitations on the size of the on-site tap room. Without specific performance standards written into the Code, this interpretation is simply an opinion that would have to be shared by City officials, zoning boards and City Council.
Where things really get murky for the three microbreweries and brewpubs proposed along Main Street in Springfield, is that the area falls under a special zoning designation within the Springfield Historic District Zoning Overlay called CCG-L. While the CCG-S zoning allows for such uses as hobby shops, shoe repair shops, radio repair shops, newspaper offices and union halls, microbreweries were never considered as a permissible use. Therein lies a gap between outdated zoning laws and present-day market realities. Radio repairmen and newspapers are not the kinds of commercial businesses that are in demand, so it is no surprise that Main Street sits empty today when a set of zoning laws encourages defunct businesses while discouraging viable businesses in growing industries. The Springfield Zoning Overlay was designed to encourage contextually sensitive uses for Main Street and has ensured that a more walkable form exists throughout the district by governing building design, setback, parking standards, etc. However as it stands, a craft brewery simply cannot exist within the District’s boundaries (save for a small portion of land to the northeast where a small number of isolated, former historic rail warehouse facilities still stand).
A depiction of nearby uses that require Main and Six Brewing Company (0) to obtain a Waiver of Liquor Distance. Nearby uses include Westside Church of Christ (1), St Mary’s Episcopal Church (2), Greater New Jerusalem Baptist Church (3), Kirby Smith Middle School (4), Mattie V Rutherford School (5), The Glorious Church of the Lord Jesus Christ (6) and Breath of Life 7th Day Adventist Church (7). Numerous buildings and streets block the view of the building subject to Main and Six’s site from churches in the area. The Wells Fargo Bank to the southeast blocks the view of the building from the Mattie V. Rutherford School. The Shanty Town Pub is closer to the Mattie V. Rutherford School than the proposed location. Map by Croasdell Company
To add onto the difficulties, many potential brewery sites in Springfield are also too close to churches, and will need what is called a Waiver of Liquor Distance. The Code requires a 500’ buffer between a restaurant serving alcohol and a church, and a 1,500’ buffer between a business that serves alcohol but not food. A drive down Main Street reveals several traditional church buildings, however unseen from the naked eye is the instances of several churches that operate within non descript storefronts.
Due to these limitations, more and more entrepreneurs looking to open craft breweries and brewpubs within Jacksonville have turned to a rezoning process known as a Planned Unit Development (PUD). A PUD is a lengthy process of rezoning a site-specific area with its own set of rules and criteria that applies to that site and that site only. Generally, a civil engineer, a land use attorney and a staff of related paralegals are employed to guide this process. Several public hearings, committee meetings and ultimately a series of City Council approvals are required in order to obtain a PUD. Needless to say, this process is expensive, time-consuming and unbearably inefficient for a growing industry that offers the very real opportunity to act as neighborhood saviors.
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