After standing empty more than a year, the ramshackle building a block down from Ashley Mews that had housed Carter’s Auto Service is showing signs of life. In October the outside walls had been painted, and most of the equipment inside was gone–though the car lifts remained.
After nineteen years in the location without a lease, John Carter says he was given “maybe a month” to move his tools and customers out. He went to Auto Tech on Aprill Dr. back in October 2015 but remains incredulous about his former landlord’s intentions.
“He told us three years ago he was going to turn it into a brewpub, and I didn’t believe him,” laughs Carter. “He says he’s going to back a concessions truck in and just have the beer handle coming outside. I don’t know how that’s going to work in the winter!”
“That building is a turd,” he snorts. “The walls leak when it rains. It’s got no foundation.” (It’s built on a concrete slab.) Carter contends the landlord has few options because “there’s an old map and you can see there’s a river that’s been covered over down there.”
Jerry Hancock, the city’s storm water and floodplain programs coordinator, identifies the river as Allen Creek–and says the building is smack dab in its floodplain.
“Someone has come and talked with me two or three times about a brewpub,” Hancock reports. “He said we’re going to clean it up and have a bar and brewing equipment. I told him if the project’s cost exceeds 50 percent of the market value of the structure, they will have to flood-proof the building, which means put vents in that allow floodwater to enter and exit.”
Repeated phone calls failed to connect with landlord Joel Flowers, but we bumped into him one afternoon working inside the building with his son. Flowers said he hoped to open in thirty to ninety days and that he’d call the next morning to discuss his plans.
He never did, but the building was clearly cleaner two days later–though still a long way from being a brew pub.
