The Phinney Design Group is looking to build its portfolio in the North Country.
Its latest design project, RiverTrail Beerworks in Saranac Lake, just opened there.
The brewery project was contracted with PDG at the end of the pandemic. Work didn’t begin until 2023 due to the cost of materials rising and the decision to raze the existing building instead of converting it, said Mike Phinney, owner and founding principal architect.
“There was a lot of analysis that went into, ‘Does it make sense to try to renovate what’s there and expand it, or just take it down and start new?’ And in the end, take it down and start new ended up being the more appropriate financial move,” Phinney said. “It turned out the building was just full of hazardous materials, so it was a little bit easier to remove all those things and clean up the site, considering we were removing everything.”
The facility at 79 Woodruff St. is over 16,700 square feet and includes sustainability features like solar panels that power the brewery and electric vehicle chargers.
Owners of the brewery, Chris and Catherine Ericson, also own Lake Placid Brewing and Big Slide Brewing Co. They were referred to Phinney by Common Roots Brewing Co. in South Glens Falls after the design firm’s work on their campus.
The Saranac area has gotten a series of new developments recently. Just behind RiverTrail Beerworks, train tracks were converted to a pedestrian, bike and snowmobile trail that stretches to Lake Placid. And along a nearby river, a new promenade was just built.
“Between the rail trail behind them and the river in front of them, the owners are hoping people are going to walk by, canoe, kayak to the location,” Phinney said.
That development and ongoing projects in the area inspired PDG to open a new office on Main Street in Lake Placid. The goal is to keep building the company’s North Country portfolio.
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