Potential buyers of Tumwater brewery property exit city meeting disappointed: ‘It’s a no’
A commercial real estate broker tied to the potential buyers and developers of former brewery property in Tumwater Valley said they will not be pursuing a project there after meeting with city officials on Thursday.
In short, they didn’t hear what they wanted to hear.
“It’s a no,” said the broker Mike Hale, whose brother George Hale and a partner, Coby Holley, had considered buying the valley brewery property with an eye toward developing it. Holley is an executive vice president with Industrial Real Estate Group, a business that owns the former Weyerhaeuser headquarters property in Federal Way.
Thursday’s meeting was with the city’s Development Review Committee, a group of city officials who explain to developers what will be expected of their projects before they take more formal steps. Before them was a proposal to turn those valley properties into warehouse or manufacturing space.
George Hale did not attend the meeting, but he told The Olympian earlier in the week that a purchase of the property was contingent on what they learned at the meeting. Also attending the meeting was the current brewery property owner, Chandu Patel.
This is the first time The Olympian has seen or heard, albeit briefly, from the owner. He participated in the meeting from the Los Angeles area and identified himself as the manager of Tumwater Development LLC, which bought the property in 2016. The brewery closed in June 2003. He didn’t speak for the remainder of the meeting.
“So with this project, what we would start with is what’s reusable, and then figure out, again, kind of what needs to happen for us to get to a marketable and leasable investment development strategy,” said Holley at the start of the gathering.
“If we get to a point where we don’t see a path forward reusing existing improvements, then we would contemplate ground up development,” he said. “And so at this point, we’re early in our evaluation and due diligence. But, you know, before we get too far down any path, we thought it’d be good for at least, you know, to introduce ourselves, our background, and then get any additional input we can from the city that would inform our path forward.”
Then Holley asked a more specific question: What would the city or community’s appetite be for distribution warehousing in that area?
Tumwater Permit Manager Tami Merriman said that would be a challenge because the area is zoned what the city calls “brewery district,” and that type of use is not allowed.
The city council a few years ago “took a hard look and stand on where they would want to allow and see warehouse distribution centers,” she said. Those areas are near 93rd Avenue, Merriman added. Light industrial zoning allows warehouses under 200,000 square feet, she said.
Tumwater Community Development Director Mike Matlock picked up where she left off.
“I think a lot of communities have four or five issues that are like their hot-button issues, and distribution warehousing is one for our council,” he said, adding, “I would say the chances of getting distribution warehousing on this side (of Capitol Boulevard) are probably slim to none, honestly.”
Holley then asked whether a light industrial user needing about 50,000 square feet of space would work in that area.
Matlock offered a “perhaps” but again returned to the matter of zoning.
“Zoning is a pretty blunt tool, and so that’s kind of where we are,” he said.
Although the meeting lasted more than an hour, it seemed to lose steam after the zoning discussion.
Afterward, broker Hale argued that the brewery property would be considered an industrial zone in most communities, meaning permitting for manufacturing and distribution would be allowed.
But that is not the case here, he said.
“That really reduces the amount of businesses that would be interested in occupying the site and creating jobs,” Hale said.
The site has a lot of strengths: rail, power and close access to the interstate.
“That’s what businesses look for,” he said.
He said if the city is not going to assist or contribute money or provide some ease on zoning restrictions it’s going to be some time before it’s redeveloped.
This story was originally published March 14, 2025 at 10:12 AM.
