A Stone left unturned, Stone Bistro not going into a renovated Intermediate Terminal

The plan was for Stone Brewing to renovate the historic Intermediate Terminal #3 on the riverfront. The renovations would produce Stone’s World Bistro & Gardens restaurant and taproom. Those plans have run around on the harsh reality of using a historic building, on stilts, built on a floodplain.

Check out their original plans here in a video with Stone Brewing Executive Chairman and Co-Founder Greg Koch.

CBS6 has the details:

Over the past year the Stone and the EDA have worked on the design of the 30,000-square-foot facility, according to an ordinance that was on the finance committee’s agenda but which was pulled at the last minute ahead of the Thursday meeting.

A geotechnical report completed within the last six months by Timmons Engineering detailed structural deficiencies that would make the cost of structural enhancements and addressing floodplain issues not feasible, according to the EDA.

“The project team has undergone an rigorous design process, which has led to a finding that the structure of [the] existing building cannot support the proposed renovation,” City officials with EDA said.

To keep the project moving forward Mayor Stoney will be asking to amend the original proposal. The amendment would allow for the destruction of the historic building and construction of a brand new building. This also moves the scheduled open date from late 2018 to ????.

The city has already allocated $8 million for the Bisto (Phase 2) and any cost beyond that would be Stone’s Brewing. The logic of the city spending $8 million to help a private company construct a restaurant is that the city would be paid back through lease revenues over 25 years.