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Brewery project moving forward

Cambria County commissioners told plans are progressing

NANTY GLO — A developer looking to convert a former prison into a brewery assured Cambria County commissioners on Thursday that the project is moving forward.

His comments came a few weeks after County Controller Ed Cernic spoke openly about his disappointment with the developer’s progress.

Sheldon Piepenburg — who aims to renovate the former county jail in Ebensburg Borough into a brewery and restaurant — addressed commissioners during a public comment session at their morning meeting.

“We have been working on the project with the county and the borough quite a number of years now,” Piepenburg said, saying plans to develop the jail began in 2014 with a purchase agreement signed the following year.

“Everything is moving forward, albeit at a little bit of a slower pace than a lot of us would like,” he said.

Late last month, Cernic spoke critically about the project’s progress.

“The county was put under the gun at the end of March to move our records out of there,” Cernic said. “I’m a little disappointed that things haven’t moved a little quicker.”

At that meeting, Larry Custer, Cambria County Redevelopment Authority’s outgoing executive director, said he was confident the necessary financing soon would be secured.

On Thursday, Piepenburg said the same.

“I can tell you that the last 13, 14 months, I’ve been really working hard to get the financing in place,” he said. “Financing this project has really become an endeavor.”

Piepenburg said he had pursued several funding streams, including private banks.

Those efforts proved fruitless, mainly because of the high failure rates of bars and restaurants, he said.

“Of the five banks that I contacted … none of them would fund the project,” Piepenburg said.

However, he said the same failure rate is not true for breweries. Citing the Brewers Association of America, Piepenburg claimed 87 percent of breweries opened since 1980 have remained in business.

Even with that record, it has been hard to move the Ebensburg project forward, Piepenburg said.

“And what’s worse, guess what, one of the breweries that failed just happened to be in Cambria County,” he said.

In all, Piepenburg has had to request eight deadline extensions, but he said he is now on the verge of closing on financing.

He predicts money will be in place by the end of November.

In the meantime, Piepenburg said he’s taken steps to move ahead in other ways, even setting up a meeting with a brewer. He thanked local government officials for their help.

“It’s a really good working relationship with the county commissioners, going back and forth as issues have arisen over that time frame,” he said. “It’s a big project. It’s probably the biggest thing that I have undertaken in my civilian life.”

Mirror Staff Writer Sean Sauro is at 946-7535.

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