In 1903, The Barrel Factory in the Old First Ward of Buffalo was probably an industrial, dirty, arduous place of work that folks couldn’t wait to punch out of and head home. Today, it’s a destination people will seek out.
The Barrel Factory is now owned by and the home of Lakeward Distillery. They make vodka, gin, and will eventually be venturing into rum and whiskey. The group that owns the building has transformed it into a beautiful mixed-use, adaptive project. Along with the distillery, The Barrel Factory is home to Elevator Alley Kayak, Snowy Owl Kombucha, Buffalo’s Best Grill Cucina, and a future winery and brewery. Each of the businesses have a focus on agribusiness and fermentation (outside of Elevator Alley Kayak, who benefits from the proximity to the water and a drink after a good row).
As part of their license and ability to have a tasting room, New York State mandates 75 percent of Lakeward’s product be from New York raw materials. Lakeward has upped the ante to 100 percent. Adam Bystran oversees the distillation and coordinates with the middle-men they get their grain from. He says they often struggle to keep up with Lakeward’s demand, because they’re distilling so much product. They opened in September and haven’t stopped growing since.
They now feature an event space on the second floor, with an aerial view of the distilling room floor. In the coming days, an outdoor patio will be completed. In the winter, they allow the natural heat from their process to warm the building. Rather than dumping water every day, they reuse it for a month to be environmentally conscious. They fan the smell of their product throughout the building to create an immersive guest experience.
The warm, open space is filled with reuse materials from the original building. Somewhere in between the buildings heyday in 1903 and today, it became dilapidated and severely underutilized. Many of the benches or arm rests you see are original wood from 1903. The group has creatively solved problems on the path to crafting a 43,000 square foot economic development beacon for Erie County.
And it couldn’t have been done without the help of the Erie County Industrial Development Agency. The project had a total capital investment of nearly $2.5 million. ECIDA helped with sales and mortgage tax incentives.
What we learned in Erie County
Over the past few weeks, we at InBN have pounded the pavement in preparation and celebration of Economic Development Week, May 8-13. We’ve reached out to each of our eight counties, visiting our IDA partners, and touring economic development projects of impact in the area. This is what we learned in Erie County:
Adaptive reuse is so in right now
Along with Lakeward Distillery, the ECIDA has prioritized many adaptive reuse projects. Their CEO, Steve Weathers, estimates that they’ve helped about 60 adaptive reuse projects through incentives. Those were buildings that were basically empty, dead space with no economic benefit. Most have been in Buffalo because it is home to some of the old, industrial, underutilized space, but Weathers hopes to branch that out more to the entire county. Their most recent project is outside of the city in Kenmore.
Currently, ECIDA is conducting a study that is expected to come out in June. Weathers expects it to show that Buffalo has one of the top adaptive reuse systems in the country. He credits that to the ECIDA board, the staff, the community, and the developers.
Keep a balanced portfolio
“If it’s all about one thing, somebody is going to be left out,” Weathers said.
Weathers understands the versatility his region must have. He can both incentivize a large employer with median wages and a smaller employer with large wages. Erie County can work for everyone. The ECIDA has worked both on large projects like HarborCenter and distilleries like Lakeward.
“It is about economic prosperity for everybody in your community,” Weathers said. “It is really about having a balanced portfolio.”
