Hoping to lure craft brewers, Orlando eases zoning rules
From Portland, Ore., to Asheville, N.C., a nationwide craft-beer renaissance is brewing, and Orlando is eager to tap into the trend.
An Orlando planning board recently approved zoning changes, modeled on rules followed by those cities and other craft-brew meccas, that aim to better accommodate microbreweries, brewpubs, distilleries and wineries.
In the past, local breweries were an awkward fit within the city’s rules, effectively forcing some into industrial areas and limiting the size of retail spaces and tasting rooms.
“What this does it is basically flips the whole thing,” said Dean Grandin, the city’s planning director. “Rather than our regulations driving the form of the business, the business can go where they feel they need to be.”
The city’s rule changes, which still must be approved by the City Council, would come as the number of craft breweries in Central Florida is set to nearly double in the coming months. That is
amid a nationwide trend that saw an industry group report 16 percent growth in 2015.
“I think that Orlando is [being] very, very progressive in this,” said John Cheek, president of Orlando Brewing. As an Orlando craft brewing pioneer, Cheek has run up against the city’s zoning rules in the past.
His microbrewery is in an industrial district. So its tasting room, where customers can sample and buy Orlando Brewing’s beer and merchandise, was not allowed to take up more than 25 percent of its overall floor space.
Years ago, his plans for an outdoor beer garden were rebuffed by the 25-percent rule, Cheek said.
In the city’s commercial districts, the opposite problem emerges: Only 25 percent of the floor area of a business can be used for manufacturing. That effectively forces breweries of Orlando Brewing’s size into industrial areas.
“People don’t drive by and go, ‘Oh, my god, there’s a brewery,’ ” said Cheek of Orlando Brewing’s Atlanta Avenue facility, which counts a welder among its neighbors. “If they’re driving by, they’re lost.”
The new rules would allow up to a 50-50 split between manufacturing and Wop’s Hops Brewing Company in Sanford is one of a handful of beer-centric businesses that operate in a 5-block area of that city. Orlando is hoping to also tap into the popularity of craft-beer businesses.
retail. City planners hope the added flexibility will help lure new breweries and allow existing ones to expand.
The city also would for the first time allow brewpubs
— restaurants that brew their own beer on site — to set up shop in industrial districts.
For smaller producers, having an adequate retail area is vital, said Charles Frizzell, co-owner of Broken Cauldron Brewery, soon to open on Church Street in Parramore.
“The tasting room is your main source of profit or revenue,” he said. “It drives people to you. They come and buy a couple of your beers, maybe the buy a Tshirt or two.”
Orlando’s old rules were designed years ago, with large-scale manufacturing operations in mind.
The new rules were inspired by the success of Asheville, Portland and other cities where local brewers have flourished, officials say. In San Diego, a study found that craft brewing had a $600 million impact in 2014.
Orlando’s planners also say that craft breweries make cities attractive to a younger workforce and have helped to revitalize rundown industrial areas such as Portland’s Pearl District, now an arts-and-eats haven.
As Broken Cauldron Brewery prepares to open just blocks from the site of Orlando City Soccer Club’s new stadium, Frizzell said he foresees a similar revival ahead for Orlando’s long-blighted west side.
“I personally feel that this area of downtown Orlando is going to be a completely different area in five to seven years,” he said.