VALDOSTA — After three years of working with the Valdosta-Lowndes County Development Authority, Georgia Beer Company officially held a groundbreaking ceremony for its downtown brewery.

The Tuesday ceremony did not involve the traditional shovels and dirt, but rather metal bars and a wooden door. Chris Jones, director of business, and Jack Martin, director of brewery operations, used the bars to pry open the wooden door to signify the groundbreaking. 

The ceremony comes a week shy of the March 12 start date for the $878,300 renovation of the old water works building at 109. S. Briggs St. 

Jones Construction is the contractor, and will have 240 days to complete the project; however, Jones is hopeful construction will be completed early and be able to open around July or August.

Jones talked about the risk involved with starting the journey to open a brewery.

“One of my favorite quotes of all time is: Life’s greatest risk is not taking one,” Jones said. “So, the biggest risk you can take in life is to not take a risk.

“I thought about that when (Martin) and I decided to quit our jobs, take on all this debt and risk the livelihood of our family in a part of the state that has never had a brewery. But that quote just kept ringing in my head. … And I never would have been able to look at myself had I not been able to jump off that ledge and went after this goal.”

The project is a private-public partnership between Georgia Beer Company and the development authority.

“This has truly been a community project from the outset,” said Tom Call, chairman of the development authority. “It couldn’t have happened without the cooperation of the City of Valdosta, the Valdosta Downtown Development Authority, … The Small Business Development Center and Georgia Power.”

The development authority studied communities with breweries and found breweries had positive economic impacts and improved the quality of life for the communities where the breweries were built, Call said.

“This has not been a typical development authority project,” he said. “It’s very unique and required some very creative ideas to make it happen, and basically, our board saw the benefit that this business would bring to Valdosta and to Lowndes County.”

Georgia Beer Company plans to bring five to 10 jobs within 24 months after opening, according to a press release from the development authority.

Georgia Beer Company will lease its new building from the development authority for at least six years.

The lease will start the day after construction on the property is finished. Georgia Beer Company will not have payments during its first year in the lease.

For years two through six, the lease payments will be $4,500. After year six, the lease payments will increase to $6,725. The total length of the lease is 16 years and would culminate in a net payment of $1.077 million to the development authority.

To incentivize Georgia Beer Company to purchase the building after year six, the property will be available for purchase for $1.05 million less any rents paid to that date. The purchase price will increase by $100,000 at the end of years six, seven and eight.

If Georgia Beer goes the full term of the lease, the purchase price for the building will be $273,000.

The groundbreaking had a large turnout including government officials, business owners and residents. Mayor John Gayle said the turnout was indicative of the community’s excitement for the project to be complete.

“You know this is a tremendous crowd,” Gayle said. “I’ve been to a lot of groundbreakings, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a crowd like this before. The only thing I can figure is everyone is looking forward to the product.”

Jason Smith is a reporter at The Valdosta Daily Times. He can be contacted at 229-244-3400 ext.1257.