DOUGLAS PARK — Lagunitas Brewing owners are making plans to build a concert venue and rooftop bar at the popular Chicago brewery near Douglas Park.
The small venue would host intimate music sets for 400 to 650 people, Karen Hamilton, the company's director of communications, said Thursday.
The new concert and event venue would be modeled after the Laguminiamphitheaterette, an amphitheater at the company's West Coast brewery in Petaluma, Calif.
"We hold 12 to 15 concerts there a year and we'll be looking to do the same in Chicago," said Hamilton, who is the sister of Lagunitas founder Tony Magee.
Listen to Stephanie Lulay set the scene at Lagunitas.
The move makes sense — the Lagunitas taproom stage often hosts bands, the brewery hosts a summer fest with live music and Magee himself is a musician who plays in the Chicago-based band Alice Drinks the Kool-Aid. Magee's blues-influenced indie rock band has toured the United States many times and is planning a European tour in 2017.
"Beer and music are pretty much synonymous for us," Hamilton said. "Music is a simple extension of our brand."
The concert venue would be built in the brewer's existing 300,000-square-foot warehouse at 2607 W. 17th St., that now houses the brewery's taproom and brewing operations, Hamilton said Thursday. Under a longterm lease, the Lagunitas brewery is on the Cinespace Chicago Film Studios lot.
Lagunitas also has plans to expand its existing taproom and open a second bottling line and cold storage facility on site.
In order to build the new concert venue and make other changes to the site, Lagunitas has applied for a zoning change.
The proposal will be considered by the Chicago Plan Commission. If it's approved, Lagunitas does not yet know when construction would start on the music venue and rooftop projects, Hamilton said.
"We need to go through all of the permitting and licensing first!" she wrote in an e-mail. "And then we begin the fun of creating."
Lagunitas opened its Chicago brewery in February 2014 at 17th and Rockwell streets just east of Douglas Park. The brewery's taproom, next to film studio Cinespace Chicago, opened in June 2014.
In addition to the Chicago and Petaluma, Calif. breweries, Lagunitas plans to open a new brewery in Azusa, Calif. soon. The amphitheater at Lagunitas in Petaluma is celebrating its fifth anniversary this year.
Lagunitas' Chicago brewery has produced 405,000 barrels of beer so far this year, Hamilton said.
Lagunitas Brewing founder Tony Magee (right) plays with his band Alice Drinks the Kool-Aid in Detroit. [Facebook/Alice Drinks the Kool-Aid]
...so cool playin warmup for a songwriting hero, better than that- could die happy...thanks PHX! Tomorrow night we play Flagstaff..! See ya? pic.twitter.com/n465WJgt4L
— LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) November 5, 2016
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here.
