Stillwater Minnesota is in the midst of a great deal of change. With the construction of the new interstate and Wisconsin bridge, our town will be a very different place in just a few, short years.

However, buried under the news of the massive interstate construction is a smaller story. A group of developers from Stillwater Caves LLC have proposed an estimated $10 million makeover of Joseph Wolf Brewery, transforming it into a 40-room hotel complete with shops and a restaurant. There’s a catch, though; they require $1.5 million in city subsidies. Although it may seem luxurious on paper, this is not a project that should be approved.

Stillwater already has a wide variety of lodging choices, such as Water Street Inn and Lowell Inn, not to mention the other hotels further from downtown Stillwater. One quick drive by and one will notice that there is something wrong: their parking lots are nearly empty. This is not a problem that would be fixed by introducing another inn to the mix.

Increased competition is not the only downside with this project, though. $1.5 million is quite a large sum of money, and it would all need to be borrowed by the city. Although the money would be subsidized for the project, not all of it would necessarily need to be spent remodeling the brewery. Mayor Ken Karycki explains, “About a third of the $1.5 million would go towards a ‘developer’s fee’, meaning that the developers themselves receive the funds. Those funds wouldn’t necessarily need to be spent on the project, and that just doesn’t sit right with me.”

It should be said, however, that the proposed project would have its benefits. The brewery the hotel would renovate is in a state of disrepair. It may look rather sound from the outside, but the inside of the building is nearly uninhabitable. The project would take care of this and breathe new life into the district. The proposal is also changing constantly, with the latest proposal being on a pay-as-you-go plan, meaning that the city would pay as the project increases local property tax as opposed to all up-front. That being said, the cost of simply demolishing the building would be substantially less than $1.5 million.

Although the proposal for the brewery looks nice, the potential cost to taxpayers and negative effects on current local lodging businesses outweigh the benefits. The developers have stated that there is an 18-24 month time frame before the project is “going to be at the point economically where it’s not going to make sense for an investor group,” but before more information is available on the project and the interstate’s effects on the community, or steps are taken to protect the taxpayer, this project should not be approved.