Near the train tracks in Fridley, Minnesota stands a strangely grand building. It used to be the boiler room for an enormous WWII manufacturing facility but had since fallen into disrepair. Forgotten Star saw in it the potential for a new brewery. Together with HMM they transformed this architectural relic into a community gathering place and watering hole.
Project Highlights
- Adaptive reuse
- Completed in 2019
Project Collaborators
- Kalcon Construction
- Reigstad Engineering
- Hyde Development
Star of the community.
The first step was imagining what the space should be—how it flowed, how spaces were defined, and what changes could be made without losing the integrity of the space. After careful and creative thinking, a plan was finalized, and construction began on Fridley’s first-ever brewery.
Turning the building into a functioning brewery started by bringing in more light. Tall windows replaced rusting metal panels and new openings were cut into the South wall to make way for glass garage doors that offered views of the tracks to the east and skyline to the South. Then came the bar, decorated with murals and period furnishings that paid homage to the building’s industrial past—something Forgotten Star didn’t want forgotten.
Today, the brewery is a warm and inviting environment that encompasses the vitality and tradition of the community—a community that dances at outdoor concerts, competes at winter curling leagues, and attends many other events hosted throughout the year, IPA in hand.
