Signed, sealed, delivered — it’s in the city’s hands now

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On Friday afternoon, I made it official, handing a 15-page proposal in to the city’s treasury department.

Three weeks ago, the city dropped a gauntlet, saying, essentially, that if you wanted to bid on the former fire hall downtown, you better get a move on.

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It took a shadier-than-it-needed-to-be midnight meeting in a drug store parking lot, so that I could take possession of a $10,000 deposit cheque, a city requirement. (SUBMITTED)

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Here's a preview of what city staff will see when they open the envelope. (You can read it yourself, online.) (GRANT HAMILTON / BRANDON SUN)

Their deadline was yesterday.

What started as a bit of a lark for me — a pretty standard column saying that "they" should turn the fire hall into a brewpub — quickly turned serious when "they" came out of the wordwork and I realized I had volunteered.

So, three very busy weeks later, I’m proud to say that I stopped by City Hall yesterday afternoon, and I dropped off a manila envelope, addressed as directed to "Item #L-37/12."

Ah, bureaucracy.

Inside the envelope was a 15-page proposal that I’d put together with a few friends.

The city now has 60 days to examine all the proposals they receive (for the former police station as well as for the fire hall) before staff make a recommendation to city council.

It’s council that will give the final thumbs up or down on any sale of the fire hall.

Having never written a proposal for a municipal government before, I wasn’t quite sure how to approach it.

Proposals from previous land sales, like the grounds around Fleming School, aren’t made public. But, the report that staff prepares for council is — and those reports are archived on the city website.

So, from reading about successful and not successful proposals, I think I was able to glean a few hints on how to best present my case for a co-op brewpub in the fire hall.

I also passed several drafts of the proposal to trusted friends (I happen to know a few writers and editors).

But in the end, it came down to hitting print, licking the envelope, and handing it in.

Frankly, I was a little more nervous than I had thought.

Maybe it had something to do with the $10,000 cheque — a deposit required by the city — that I had cadged from a friend.

Or maybe the number that makes me nervous has a few more zeroes.

Because after a couple weeks of research, I became more and more aware that this brewpub was a million-dollar idea.

Literally.

Like, we will have to come up with $1 million at a bare minimum, if this thing is going to get off the ground.

Now, a million dollars may not buy what it used to, but it’s still a hefty enough number to make me sit up and take notice.

And, I repeat, that is the bare minimum.

So, what keeps me optimistic?

Perhaps it’s encounters like the one I had last week, when I visited the CAA Manitoba offices on 18th Street.

Manager Chris Heide came up and shook my hand, saying he’d been following the brewpub saga and that he wished us well.

This happens a lot. There is strong support for this idea in the community.

I responded with a variation on my usual joke: "Take me to your chequebook," I said.

Heide demurred.

Of course, I don’t expect everyone to have thousands of dollars to invest in this idea. But he did say he’d become a member. 

And that’s beauty of the co-op idea: Everyday folks who may not want to speculate on a business investment can still buy a co-op membership — taking on a bit of ownership at an affordable cost and proudly being able to say, "I built that."

Of course, as U.S.-watchers know, "I built that" is now code for "with the government’s help."

And, despite our belief that we can raise a significant amount of money by selling shares to the many people who want to see us succeed, I think we’re going to need a little boost at the start, too.

So, contained in our proposal is the price we’re offering for the fire hall — one dollar.

Although the city has assessed the property at $370,000, we’re hoping that they will basically give it to us for free.

It’s a gesture that we think will show the city is ready to put a significant contribution into a project that will be a huge benefit for downtown, will maintain a heritage building, and which has wide community support.

It will also allow us to immediately leverage the value of the building to get a jump-start on building the rest of the business.

Because now, of course, comes the really hard work.

Despite the time and effort we’ve invested into research so far, there’s much more to come.

Thanks, by the way, to the many patient people who answered my sometimes-very-dumb questions about heritage building renovations, about sourcing brewery equipment, or about restaurant building codes.

The next couple of months, as city staff peruse fire hall proposals, we’ll be continuing to gather information and make preparations for Stage Two.

Of course, that’ll be harder than it has to be — because this opportunity has arrived at a very busy time for me, personally.

After more than five years of working for The Man here at the Brandon Sun, I’m finally taking a vacation.

Oh, I enjoy my job. And I love the people with whom I work, but my girlfriend is getting a little sick of my never taking a day off.

So is the Sun’s accounting department, who viewed my steadily mounting accumulated vacation time with alarm.

A few months ago, though, we made arrangements to burn through all that vacation by the end of the year.

The upshot? I’m flying to Switzerland on Oct. 2 and I won’t be back until after Christmas.

It’s a long-awaited break, but you can see how this will interfere with negotiations over the future of a former fire hall.

Luckily, I’m not going to Jupiter; I’ll be in Europe — I hear they have the Internet there.

And, although I’ve been the public face of Brewtinerie, I haven’t been the only person toiling away to make it a reality.

I’m leaving behind a few friends — the rest of the "Brewtinerie steering committee" — to keep moving things along.

When it comes time to answer questions from the city, I will be checking my email (although they should expect a time-zone delay).

And how about you?

Think you’ve got something to offer? We may be able to make use of your expertise, and you should drop us a line at info@brewtinerie.ca.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to write about the progress we’re making.