THE proposal grabbed headlines across the nation when first revealed, but a decision on Macarthur Grange Brewery’s big beer bottle is no closer to being made.
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Goulburn Mulwaree Council Director of Planning Louise Wakefield told the Post Council was still awaiting additional information requested by the Roads and Maritime Service before they could process the application.
“In terms of the 158 Hume St DA, the beer bottle, there are ongoing negotiations regarding additional information requested by the RMS.
“When that report gets finalised it will go back to a Council meeting for determination.
“At this stage it’s not earmarked for any particular meeting.”
They might be waiting a while.
CEO of Macarthur Grange Anton Szpitalak told the Post that big bottle negotiations were on hold, while the company works to open its Goulburn facility.
Currently, focus for Macarthur Grange executives’ remains on engineering and planning the Hume St site.
The last couple of months have been a whirlwind of vendor discussions, nutting out technical details and mapping all equipment necessary for the smooth running of the Brewery.
“We submitted our initial development application for the big bottle which came back with a bunch of additional questions… and we don’t want to push forward the big bottle to make sure that it definitely fits within the rest of our facility and brand,” Mr Szpitalak said on Tuesday.
“It is a bit of fun thing for us to bat around but we aren’t going to solidify plans until we know that it fits with the plan for the rest of the site.”
The big bottle isn’t the only thing to hit the backburner.
The opening date has also been pushed back.
Mr Szpitalak said the company had initially hoped to finish all the planning and technical elements by the end of last quarter, although due to the detailed nature of the project it had taken longer than initially estimated.
As such, the company will now miss the peak demand period for this year.
“We are now in a debate to see whether we will get a first quarter 2016 delivery date or earlier,” he said.
“We are probably tracking towards mid 2016. Whether or not it becomes earlier we will see.”
As for the small portion of the site floor space up for lease, Mr Szpitalak said interest has been encouraging.
The company is leasing an area between 2,500 and 7,500 square metres in the back portion of the future brewery. The area boasts high clearance B-Double access.
“Because we’ve got a ten year plan at the brewery from the moment we open, small to medium businesses are interested but not wanting a ten year lock in,” he explained.
“We’ve basically said they can come in while we are growing for however long they would like.
“There’s been a lot of interest. We haven’t found a tenant but a lot of people are interested.”
He listed government organisations, logistics companies, commercial industries (such as framing and woodworking) as directions where interest is coming from.
Mr Szpitalak said the space was suitable for any business with production, staging and storage needs.
