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Fishers Sun King location on hold

HAMILTON COUNTY (WISH) – Plans for a multi-million dollar brewery in Hamilton County are now on hold.

Sun King Brewery says it will wait to see whether the state will allow the company to brew more beer.

It announced plans to expand operations to Fishers last summer. The move would bring in millions of dollars and thousands of visitors for the city. The facility in downtown Indianapolis will stay put.

Production is moving right along on the assembly line at Sun King Brewery. The company is getting ready to launch a new beer next week while plans to expand in Fishers sit on the back burner.

“We realized that it was going to cost a whole lot of money to build a brand new brewery and that we couldn’t justify the cost under the current laws,” said Clay Robinson, owner of Sun King Brewery.

Current laws would only allow Sun King Brewery to produce and sell 30,000 barrels of beer each year. Any more than that the company would have to go through a third party distributor.

Robinson wants to keep everything in Indiana, but says the law limits their potential to grow.

“We are really unable to take on more customers and grow our business in anyway so we’re not able to hire anymore people and take on new accounts,” said Robinson.

However, two proposed bills could change that by increasing the amount of production. If lawmakers approve the bill, it would increase the barrel count to 90,000.

“The investment that they were going to make in our community was significant,” said Mayor Scott Fadness, City of Fishers. “It meant new job and money and tax revenue to our community.”

The estimated $10 million facility will be located near Kincaid Drive and Park Central Drive.

The City of Fishers and Sun King Brewery have an economic development agreement, including tax abatements and other incentives.

“Our agreement still stands and we’re all going to watch this legislation very closely,” said Fadness.

Robinson remains optimistic about the outcome.

“We’re still planning to build our facility in Fishers, it’s just that in this point in time without knowing the regulatory climate that we’re living in and the rules that we have to play by we’re not sure exactly how to plan and do our project,” said Robinson.

The bills have already passed both in the House and Senate and are now waiting for consideration.

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