Ballast Point coming to Botetourt County with 178 new jobs

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BOTETOURT COUNTY (WSLS 10) - The greater Roanoke area is celebrating the announcement of another major brewery committing to move to the area.

Ballast Point Brewing and Spirits, the nation's 11th largest craft beer company, will build its east coast distribution facility in the Greenfield Center in Botetourt County, bringing more than 170 jobs with it.

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The company is moving into a building it bought from the Lawrence Companies.

"I think that they were looking at over 90 locations nationwide, so it was a lot of work and effort being able to get them here," said County Administrator Gary Larrowe.

Larrowe says besides Botetourt being a central location on the east coast for distribution, this building was important to Ballast Point because of its short timeline.

"Probably be 14 months or something to that effect, which is a very, very quick timeline associated with getting any business up and going of this magnitude, and so it should be the summer of next year," said Larrowe.

Between now and then, Ballast Point will be putting $47 million into it's new home.

"26 million of that will be for building production, building costs, and the other 21 million will be in machinery and equipment," said Ann Miller with the Roanoke Regional Partnership.

Miller says the county was also attractive to the company because of its natural resources.

"Our water is at the headwaters and so it's very clean, and therefore we accept a very high level of affluence in our waste water, and therefore we need those affluents, so there's no pre-treatment charges on our waste water," said Miller.

Ballast Point is the fourth major economic announcement for the county this year.

The Eldor Corporation and the Virginia Community College system announced moving operations to the county earlier this year, and the Arkay factory also announced an $11 million expansion.

Miller says the new company will have a major impact on the region.

"Over 370 million dollars economic impact and secondary jobs around 540," said Miller.

Larrowe says that influx of income will have a dramatic impact on Botetourt County itself, likely changing its demographics in years to come.

"Since January 1, in Botetourt, we've had 778 new jobs announced... what I would end up hoping is that this would actually help to attract a younger community in some way. That we would actually be able to have some Millennials and some people that would be interested in coming and being part of our community," said Larrowe.

Ballast Point joins 15 other craft breweries that already call the Roanoke Valley home.

The County and the Commonwealth Opportunity Fund will give Ballast Point $2.4 million each in grants and tax breaks.

The company has not given a timeline for when it plans to begin construction.