Brewery on tap for Midtown Oklahoma City development – NewsOK.com

Restoration of the original theater facade and marquee are shown in this rendering by Allford Hall Monagham Morris, with the Elk Valley Brewing Co. tap room and rooftop bar to the south of the former theater.[Rendering provided]

A brewery and tap room are set as the next tenants of a theater redevelopment in Midtown while yet another surprise retail announcement is set to follow soon.

Pivot Project partners David Wanzer, Jonathan Dodson and Ben Sellers bought the former Uptown Theater and adjoining retail and office space at 1212 N Hudson Ave. last October for $2.86 million. Their first-announced tenant was Resolution Legal Group, a law firm that will occupy an expanded office wing on the north end of the property.

Wanzer confirmed Elk Valley Brewing Co. will open a brewery and tap room on the south end of the development which, like the office annex, will include new expanded space. Broker Allison Bailey confirmed the pending tenant will be a retail mix.

The tenant is not ready to talk publicly, but I'm excited to see this project coming to Midtown, Bailey said. It will be a good fit for visitors and neighbors alike.

Renderings by Allford Hall Monagham Morris show the original theater facade dating back to the building's opening in 1941 will be recreated along with the former theater marquee. Modern additions will be built behind the office annex on the north end and for the brewery that will extend from a retail space that will be the Elk Valley's tap room with a rooftop bar.

The Pivot Project also owns surface parking to the south of the development, which plans show could evolve into housing, a hotel and retail. Wanzer said no such plans are set, however, and are only a potential future use for the property.

With the streetcar stop on that corner, transit-oriented development may make sense there at a later date, Wanzer said.

The two-story, 5,300-square-foot office addition is set to include a rooftop terrace and a formal entrance facing a new parking lot to the east of the building. Construction by Smith & Pickel is set to start soon with the firm scheduled to move in by early 2018.

John Elkins, who is hoping to open the brewery and tap room by mid-2018, started his Elk Valley Brewing Co. in 2013, first with Choc in Krebbs and then taking on more of a role in the business side of the operation in a cooperative venture with Mustang Brewing.

The guys at Pivot talked to me about ideas they had, and I was glad to find a place I could call my own, Elkins said. We looked at different properties and this was the right fit. It's the community I want to be in.

The tap room will be in the 900-square-foot retail storefront south of the former theater.

We're looking to have some fun things on tap, things people haven't had a chance to try, Elkins said. We will have 16 taps, some will be non-alcohol. We will have sodas and we have a guy coming in who will be making Kombucha (a fermented, sweetened black or green tea). It's something I'd love to do that nobody is doing on-site here in the city. It's natural and good it's good for digestion.

The 4,000-square-foot expansion for the brewery, meanwhile, is being designed to reflect the use of metal, aluminum and glass being used with the Resolution Legal Group office addition.

It will allow me to double production, Elkins said. I'm pretty conservative in my projections. We will be going from two to eight people. We can grow to 10 times our production in that place before we'd have to grow to another location to handle distribution.

Wanzer said he sees the development as a tribute to R.G. Sieber, who built the theater and also built the landmark Sieber Hotel, butcher shop, restaurant and other retail across the street. The 650-seat theater opened in January 1941, boasting air conditioning and double seats for couples on date nights. Top movie tickets cost 20 cents, while matinee tickets cost 15 cents.

The theater was closed in 1955 by heir Delrose Sieber, and a second floor was added into the theater's auditorium. The modernization included changes to the theater's first floor facade that are now set to be reversed back to the original appearance.

The Sieber family was trying to create a neighborhood with all their properties in the area, Wanzer said. We feel like we are honoring that original vision.

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Brewery on tap for Midtown Oklahoma City development - NewsOK.com