Discover the Future of the Riverfront in Owatonna, MN
Big developments will bring more excitement and opportunities to downtown Owatonna.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one. A group of friends starts homebrewing together on weekends. Then, as their equipment and ambitions outgrow the garage, someone dares to say what everyone is thinking: “What if?” And suddenly, they’re remodeling an industrial building into a microbrewery.
Mineral Springs Brewery (MSB) in Owatonna, MN, followed that exact formula when it opened on the banks of the Straight River in 2019. But now, owners Bill Cronin, Mark Sebring and Rod Baker are branching out. MSB is building a new, larger location in the ASCEND mixed-use complex.
Expected to open in late 2024, ASCEND, located along the riverfront in Owatonna, MN, will include 69 luxury apartments, with river views, a rooftop patio, a fitness center and heated parking. The first floor will feature 23,000 square feet of professional space in addition to the brewery. New bike lanes and enhancements to a major city trail, the North Straight River Parkway, will make the area even friendlier to get around.
The City of Owatonna, the Owatonna Area Chamber of Commerce and RDG Development Group are working together on the project to offer new opportunities for residents to live, work and enjoy the the riverfront in Owatonna, MN.
To find out what the riverfront development will mean for the Owatonna, MN, brewery and community, we spoke with Cronin, president of MSB.
How will ASCEND impact the community?
It’s going to add life to downtown. There’s no doubt about it. The builder says demand is very high right now, with many of the units already being spoken for. These are higher-end apartments, so the type of downtown spending that’s expected to come from this will help not just us but other businesses.
The restaurants downtown – like Torey’s Restaurant & Bar and Roma’s Italian Eatery — are sharp. There’s a new hotel. Old Town Bagels does well. Foremost Brewing Cooperative does well. And we’re doing well. An economic fabric is developing. You can see it. Four years ago, downtown was not something to brag about. That has changed.
What will the ASCEND development mean for MSB, specifically?
We’re going from 2,900 square feet to 8,400. Currently, we can seat 86 indoors, plus our patio and pods people can book. But in the new space, we’ll be able to seat 300+ and be able to partition the taproom into a 150-person private event space. We’ve given to a lot of community organizations over the years, but we’ve had to turn down many events. In the new space, we’ll be able to host private organizations, charitable organizations and others.
What other design changes are you hoping to make for the new building?
We’ve been working with a very talented group of architects, sharing photos and looking at idea boards. They ask what we think about everything, from lights to door configurations. In our day jobs, we’re all used to strategic planning, so we’re intentional with what we do, trying to do things right the first time. As an example, we had a design session with our staff, our brewers, some customers and members of a band that’s played here. We conceptually played with a CAD (computer-aided design) model together. And it was powerful.
One of the band guys said, ‘You know, it’s annoying when you’re setting up to play at 7 o’clock, and you have to walk through tables with guitars and drums. It’d be nice to have a door.’ We can do that. Independently, we wouldn’t have been concerned about their experience. But that’s also a customer experience. Nobody likes to have a guitar hitting them.
With the added space, are you planning to grow your brewing program?
We’re going to increase our fermenting capacity significantly, but we’ll continue to brew in small batches with our current five-barrel system. For some larger craft breweries, that would be considered a test system. But we don’t plan to distribute besides offering crowler and growler fills in the taproom.
When we built the brewery four years ago, we didn’t cut corners on the system, and it has worked exactly as we thought it would. Our head brewer (Mark Sebring) does an incredible job of making certain every batch is what we need it to be. We fail if this isn’t good.
We’re not focused on gimmicks. If we brew a style, we nail that style, whether that’s a Scotch ale, Pilsner, Kölsch, West Coast IPA or Cinder Hill cream ale, which is our top seller. Not everybody likes every style, but if you’re a fan of that style, you’ll love ours.
When you opened in 2019, did you expect you’d be moving again so soon?
Actually, yes. RDG Development Group owns our building, and they’ve slowly bought the property surrounding it. They’ve had this vision for years, and they’ve played a patient game. When we leased this five years ago, they said, ‘You’re not going to be in this space for more than five years.’
I don’t think any of MSB’s founders imagined the next move would be anything like this, but we also never anticipated that opening our doors down here would have opened people’s eyes to the fact that we have a river and that it’s an asset for this town.
All of a sudden this $30 million development starts getting wind behind it. I know we played a part because this development needed someone significant to sign on for the space below the apartments. We’re really excited to get over there. We see the limitations we have here. We have more in the tank, especially as Mark, Rod and I are all nearing retirement. We will invest in this heavily. This thing’s going to be here for a long time.
Click here to learn more about the future of Owatonna.
This article was sponsored by the Owatonna Partners for Economic Development.