The fast-growing brewery-restaurant group is the first retail business selected to occupy space in College Row, a 200,000-square-foot mix of retail, residential and commercial space being built in the 800 block of Harrisburg Avenue.

The $30 million complex, across from the F&M campus, will include housing for about 400 students.

Barry Bosley, F&M vice president of finance and administration, said Iron Hill will take up 10,000 square feet of the 50,000 feet allotted to retail businesses. “We’re very excited to have Iron Hill to be the first tenant signed,” Bosley said. “We think it will be a good fit for the area.”

Construction will begin in the spring on land leased by F&M to Philadelphia developer Campus Apartments. The project includes 117 apartment units for F&M students.

Iron Hill, operated by Kevin Finn, Kevin Davies and Mark Edelson, was launched in 1996 and operates six brewpubs in Delaware and Pennsylvania.

Finn said the company has thrived, despite starting at a time when the market was saturated with microbrew pubs, because it emphasizes food as much as beer. “We always called ourselves a brewery restaurant,” he said.

Each Iron Hill restaurant has four chefs who produce a diverse menu of wood-oven pizzas; sandwiches; unique appetizers, such as cheesesteak egg rolls; and plenty of rib, steak, pasta and seafood dishes.

Iron Hill has won 83 “best of” awards from regional magazines including “Best Brewpub 2006” from Philadelphia Magazine. In total, its award-winning beers have received 30 medals from the Great American Beer Festival, World Beer Cup and Real Ale Festival.

Iron Hill’s Light Lager is the company’s top seller, accounting for 25 percent to 30 percent of beer sales. It offers new seasonal beers every month or so to its staple of brews such as Raspberry Wheat, Lodestone Lager, Anvil Ale, IronBound Ale and Pig Iron Porter.

Iron Hill has restaurants in North Wales, West Chester, Phoenixville and Newark and Wilmington, Del. The Phoenixville business opened in October. Named after a historic Revolutionary War landmark in Delaware, Iron Hill last year had $20 million in sales, with about 70 percent coming from food. The partners had been looking to move to Lancaster for several months and expect to do well at the Harrisburg Avenue location. “The area is a perfect fit for us, and we look forward to serving up our fresh food and tasty beers to a whole new clientele,” Finn said.

This will be the third Iron Hill to open near a university; the others are near West Chester University and University of Delaware. “The thing we like about being in a college town is the labor market; there are a lot kids who will come and work for us,” Finn said.

Finn said the Lancaster Iron Hill will employ about 80 full- and part-time workers.

Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray, who first talked with Iron Hill officials about six months ago, described the business as “a restaurant that sells boutique beers.”

“They’ve been closely watching this market,” Gray said. “They indicated to me that they wanted to get into Lancaster before it became too expensive.”

Keares Restaurant Group operates Gibraltar and Doc Holiday’s just a few hundred feet from the Iron Hill site. Pete Keares said the brewpub will complement his businesses.

“I think it builds critical mass. I think Harrisburg Pike will become the ‘in spot’ for restaurant entertainment and dining,” Keares said. “You’ve got (Park City Center) mall at one end and (Clipper Magazine) stadium at the other, and we’re right in the middle. That could work out well.”

Dan Bernstein, senior vice president of Campus Apartments, said the long negotiation process in signing Iron Hill to the project’s first lease was worth it.

“They are a first-class operation with a first-class product,” Bernstein said.

Bernstein would not comment on lease negotiations for the remaining 40,000 square feet of retail space there.

“We have cast a wide net to local, regional and national retailers,” he said.


Patrick Burns’ e-mail address is pburns@lnpnews.com. blog comments powered by Disqus