ICYMI: Lakewood to Become Home to Western Reserve Distillery on Madison Avenue [PHOTOS]

LAKEWOOD, OH — The Fridrich Moving and Storage building has been part of Madison Avenue for over a century, however in the last five years, it has been for sale used only for storage. Fridrich Moving and Storage is now running their daily operations from their Brookpark facility.

Recently, the large Lakewood building caught the eye of Kevin and Ann Thomas.

Kevin Thomas has a 35-year background in the food and beverage industry, and he and his wife, Ann, were searching for a location to launch a new business — a distillery.

Ann and Kevin had a wishlist of requirements for the building and the community where they planned to launch the Western Reserve Distillery, and the Fridrich building at 14221 Madison Ave. and the Lakewood community fulfilled those requirements quite nicely.

Thomas said that the building lent itself to the distilling component, and Lakewood as a community was ideal. He said that not only were Lakewood's demographics a strong match for their target market, the city's strong police and fire/safety forces were another part of what made Lakewood so appealing. The Thomases agreed that Lakewood was a good community that they felt they could become a part of, as opposed to other locations, such as The Flats.

• See also: Madison is on the Move and Fridrich Moving and Storage can Still Help you with your Move

Mashing, fermentation, distillation and bottling would all take place on site. The Western Reserve will be a true grain-to-glass distiller, distilling spirits in the following categories:

• Vodka
• Gin
• Rum
• Whiskey

In addition to the distillation of handcrafted spirits, Western Reserve also plans to offer facility tours, tastings, hands-on classes and a gift shop will be built into a new wing on the eastern side of the building.

The new eastern wing of the building will also include a patio and a kitchen. Nothing is firm yet, but Kevin Thomas said that they are in negotiations with potential restaurant partners for the new space. Thomas said that if these negotiations come to fruition, the theme would be a casual, approachable farm-to-table concept.

Regardless of the outcome of the restaurant negotiations, the distillery plans are moving forward. "We can add our own restaurant at a later time," added Thomas.

Ann Thomas said that she hopes that the addition of Western Reserve will make Madison Avenue and Lakewood even more of a destination than it already is.

Construction of the distillery is planned to begin in early 2017 with completion and opening estimated for the summer/fall of 2017.

Madison on the Move

Lakewood's director of planning and development, Bryce Sylvester, told Patch that the Thomases have been great to work with and called the Western Reserve Distillery "a transformative investment in Madison Avenue." Sylvester added, "We can't wait for them to launch."

Sylvester said that the proposed design for Western Reserve Distillery represents a "thoughtful, creative approach to the adaptive reuse of that facility." Sylvester noted that the building is not easy to reuse, and he felt that the Western Reserve group has come up with a "very unique proposal" to take advantage of the building.

"Madison on the Move" is what Sylvester called the transformation of Madison Avenue, adding that we would be hearing a lot more about this in 2017.

Images courtesy of The Western Reserve Distillery