Ale Asylum's new home good for Northside

It's been discussed on the neighborhood listserv, but today saw the first news reports of Ale Asylum's proposed new brewery on Pankratz Street. The city's Urban Design Commission will take it up tomorrow night.

They should be swift about giving it their blessing.

In case you're not familiar with Pankratz, it's the street that runs between Packers Avenue and the golf course, serving two lonely office buildings. (My wife works in one of them.) It's a great location that'll serve the long-term needs of one of our most successful new local businesses.

The UDC first discussed the proposal a couple of weeks ago, and Ale Asylum made some positive changes in response to their comments: sprucing up the design, economizing the parking lot, and building a needed sidewalk connection to Packers. For a project that's already zoned and ready to go, Ale Asylum was quite accommodating.

Some UDC members asked them to consider reconfiguring the site to front directly onto International Lane, but that would defeat the purpose of the site: to allow for future expansion. Future expansion is the reason Ale Asylum is investing in the Northside! It's why they nixed plans to move downtown.

Everyone I know of - the Northside Planning Council, the Carpenter-Ridgeway Neighborhood Association, members of the Sherman Neighborhood Association, friends and neighbors - supports this project. There's no public money involved...in fact, Dane County is making money by leasing land it owns, and the City will benefit by bringing land onto the tax rolls.

As for me, I look forward to walking home from their new tap room. :)