A Daytona Main Street building could soon get an $8.5 million makeover. Here's the latest.

DAYTONA BEACH — An 84-year-old building on Main Street that has been mostly empty for years may be on its way to getting an $8.5 million makeover.

A city staff committee is recommending that the city negotiate with a South Carolina man interested in using the property on the northwest corner of Main Street and Grandview Avenue for a brewery, restaurant, and beer garden.

If City Manager Deric Feacher and other city staff members are able to strike a tentative agreement with Andrew Baumgartner, city commissioners will have the final say on what happens with the two-story, 39,300-square-foot building.

Top city staff members and city commissioners have talked about renting out the building and turning it into a public market with outdoor dining and entertainment, a restaurant, food court, vendors, food trucks, a brew pub and event space.

Whether Baumgartner wants to juggle all those different uses – or if he'll insist on a business focused on beer, food and live music – should become clear in the coming weeks.

Commissioners might also have to consider selling the property.

Members of the city staff selection committee that met Thursday afternoon said Baumgartner has expressed an interest in buying the building just south of Peabody Auditorium and the Ocean Center, which the city purchased in March for $3.1 million.

They said he has talked about pouring $6.5 million to $8.5 million into renovating the building.

Baumgartner could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Hoping to start a new chapter on Main Street

The building at 777 Main St. was built in 1939. Over the decades the boxy structure has been the home of a moving and storage business, a Harley-Davidson dealership, and the place where Corbin motorcycle saddles were sold and stored.

The building has had low-key uses in recent years that have made it look vacant. Most recently it's been leased to a tenant in the T-shirt apparel business. The renter opens the building during Bike Week and Biketoberfest, but most of the year it's closed and just used for storage.

The city estimates it could charge rent of around $546,000 annually and in six years make back the $3.1 million it paid for the building.

The city's hope is that using the building for a public market or restaurant with a microbrewery will draw more traffic to the beachside corridor and inspire more new development on the road that runs between the Halifax River and the Atlantic Ocean. While Main Street has been getting more new businesses the past few years, it's still not the bustling commercial hub it was up until about the 1980s.

At the beginning of March, the city put out a request for proposals to reimagine what the building could be. The proposals were due by the end of July, and only Baumgartner responded.

Baumgartner is the owner of Savage Craft Ale Works in West Columbia, S.C. He transformed a historic building in a South Carolina redevelopment area and turned it into a brewery, taproom and restaurant.

Baumgartner's West Columbia business is a gathering spot with a beer garden, outdoor fire pit, rooftop bar, live music, onsite brewery and restaurant that offers menu items such as New England lobster rolls, pulled pork tacos and braised beef sandwiches.

Experience with redeveloping old buildings

Baumgartner is very familiar with community redevelopment areas. His Savage Craft Ale Works in South Carolina is also in a redevelopment area.

The historic building he used had been vacant for decades and was once the home of a fire station, armory and jail. The 12,800-square-foot structure now has a taproom, rooftop bar and an onsite brewery that can be viewed from outside through large windows.

Original wood flooring was preserved in parts of the facility, according to the website of the company that handled the renovation, Hood Construction.

Equipment around the building was also repurposed, such as an overhead garage door that was turned into furniture, Hood Construction said on its website. The jail section of the building was converted into a full commercial kitchen that regularly serves hundreds of hungry patrons daily.

The project was recognized last year by the South Carolina Department of Archives and History with a Historic Preservation Honor Award.

How the Savage Craft Ale Works proposal scored

The proposal Baumgartner submitted on July 25 won't be available to the public for a few more days. Committee members and other city officials, however, have been able to read through it.

One committee member commented that the proposal only includes renderings of Baumgartner's South Carolina property, and not what's envisioned for the Daytona Beach site. It was also noted that the proposal doesn't include what employees' salaries would be if Baumgartner opens a restaurant, brewery and beer garden on Main Street.

Few details of Baumgartner's proposal were discussed at Thursday's City Hall meeting. Most of the meeting was spent reviewing each committee member's scores on different aspects of the proposal such as experience, qualifications, business plan and financial capabilities.

Each category had a 15% or 20% impact on Baumgartner's total score. Committee members graded him on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being the best. He received his highest scores on experience, and his lowest scores on his fee proposal.

Out of 100 possible points, his highest score from a committee member was 73. His lowest was 64.

Baumgartner's total score averaged out among the five committee members was 68.7.

Daytona working to revitalize Main St.: Daytona officials ponder turning Main Street building into restaurant, brewery, vendor space

Holly Prevatt, the city's purchasing agent, ran the meeting. Committee members include Director of Business Enterprise Management Michael Stallworth, Redevelopment Director Ken Thomas, Economic and Strategic Opportunities Director Jeffrey Brown, Financial Business Analyst Sandra Nealy and E-Zone Operations Manager Allyson Brown.

Stallworth said he likes that Baumgartner is interested in opening a restaurant on the site, and not just serving hors d'oeuvres. He said the city will try to negotiate to add a public market, as well.

There is no deadline on when negotiations have to be completed.

"I do think they'd be a good Daytona project," Allyson Brown said.

You can reach Eileen at Eileen.Zaffiro@news-jrnl.com

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Daytona Beach officials negotiate plan to open brewery and restaurant