St Austell Brewery, one of the South West’s leading breweries, is planning to invest £1.5million in transforming a derelict 19th century warehouse on Exeter’s vibrant quayside into a brand new pub-restaurant and micro-brewery.
The building, in Commercial Road on The Quay, has been bought leasehold from Exeter City Council by Cornwall’s premier independent brewery, and will be dramatically renovated to create a new venue for the city.
St Austell Brewery is currently revising a planning application for the stone building and hopes to begin renovation works in early 2014, with the as-yet unnamed pub opening by summer 2014.
The two-storey building dates back to the late 19th century when it was built as a bonded cellar. It has been empty for two years, having previously been used as warehouses, and more recently housing a variety of nightclubs.
The ground floor includes a 3,117 square foot main area and 586 square foot unit alongside, which will be transformed into one of St Austell Brewery’s popular pub-restaurants with a small craft beer micro brewery in addition.
The first floor will be sub-let and used to create five residential flats.
Adam Luck, Estate Director for St Austell Brewery said: “We are delighted to have acquired a new site in this vibrant area of Exeter where there is such a lot of development right now with new venues on The Quay and the recently opened Haven Banks activity centre just across the bridge on the other side of the river.
“This is a historic, waterside building that has been empty for two years and is now completely derelict. We are looking forward to transforming it into a brand new pub and restaurant, bringing a new and exciting venue to the area for people visiting Exeter’s popular Quay to enjoy.”
St Austell Brewery has been brewing real ale in Cornwall since 1851, and runs 168 historic and picturesque pubs, hotels and inns across Devon, Cornwall and Somerset. It has bought five new pub venues in the last year, and completed a £2million investment in a new cask operations plant at its base.
The brewery has recently won another haul of awards for its ales, scooping gold meals in the prestigious CAMRA South West beer competition for its Proper Job golden ale, and bronze medals for Tribute Ale, HSD Cask and Black Prince. Proper Job has also won Silver in the Champion Bottled Beer of Britain category and Bronze in the Golden Ales category at the Great British Beer Festival.
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Photo shows: 37 Commercial Road, The Quay, Exeter which has just been purchased by St Austell Brewery
Notes to editors:
St Austell Brewery (www.staustellbrewery.co.uk)