Lion roars back into Wellington

By Christine Nikiel

Friday 31st May 2002

ABOUT TO BE A BREWERY: The new 'face' of Lion Brown

Lion Breweries is bringing the Brown beer back to Wellington and building a brewery on prime waterfront real estate.

Developers Wills & Bond will restore the old brick harbour board warehouse known as Shed 22 into a brewery, restaurant and office building, with Lion Brown renting the premises on an initial 15-year contract. Construction is scheduled for completion in late July, with two months of equipment testing before scheduled opening in October.

Apart from the brewery and still to be named restaurant, the three-storey building will house tenants NZ Wines & Spirits, event management company Corporate Host, which is part-owned by Lion Breweries, and charitable trust the Lion Foundation. The 2000sq m building will also contain conference rooms and training facilities for brewery and restaurant staff.

Brewery manager Simon Taylor said Lion was investing about $10 million in the building itself and $2.5 million on brewery equipment. Rent would be about $7 million all up for the 15-year contract.

The brewery development is a first for the city's waterfront, an area charged with resource consent issues. Council plans for the development area were, at last count, up to variation 22. Lion consulted with Wellington City Council for more than two years to ensure the development "would not adversely effect the environment," Mr Taylor said, and spent about $80,000 on drainage.

Lion has been to Wellington before. Cutbacks forced it to close its Thorndon brewery in 1988, with operations relocated to Auckland and Christchurch. The brewery was replaced by a New World supermarket.

Mr Taylor said the company recognised the need for a local presence. "We looked at the success of Speights in Dunedin, Canterbury Draught in Christchurch and Waikato Draught," he said. "If we wanted a local beer we needed a local brewery."

Beer was a "very emotional thing," Mr Taylor said. "Drinkers get attached to their brand and we wanted to put a 'face' to the name Lion Brown."

The wharf brewery will churn out up to three million litres of Lion Brown a year and employ about 45 staff.

Meanwhile, on the northern part of Wellington's Queen's Wharf the council is considering plans to build a hotel on an old carpark.

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