A 5,800 square foot pub on the first floor of a new four-story building to be constructed at 130-138 Bridge Street is scheduled to open in January 2006. Groundbreaking is set for next February with Iron Hill taking control of the shell in October to finish the job at a cost of roughly $1.6 million.

Iron Hill Phoenixville will be located adjacent to the long standing and popular Columbia Bar & Grill and, with the also to-be-constructed Panani's, an Italian eatery, will complete a three-restaurant lineup on the 100 block of Bridge Street. Manny DeMutis, head of the DeMutis Group which is developing the project, said the trio "will create 500 to 800 diners on a Friday night." The resultant foot traffic, he added, "will transform Bridge Street into a destination spot."

Iron Hill founding partner and brewery operations manager Mark Edelson agrees. "Revitalization generally starts with restaurants. You have to give people some reason to come to area. We like being involved in the revitalization of small towns. Admittedly, this is the earliest we've ever been on the downtown redevelopment curve, but we think the demographic in and around Phoenixville fits our business plan very well."

The site is just down the street and around the corner from the town's historic and recently restored Foundry building. The Phoenixville Area Economic Development Corporation is reputedly on the verge of announcing a deal in which the building will be occupied by  Kildare's, a West Chester-based local Irish pub chain, and The Point, a Bryn Mawr-based music venue. The popular Colonial Theater, which specializes in art and independent films, and Steel City Coffeehouse, which already features a schedule of live music and performances, are located on Bridge Street just above the Foundry site, as is a new Phoenixville Arts Center.

The new pub will be smaller than the five existing Iron Hill locations--"just slightly smaller than our first pub in Newark was when we first opened in 1996," says Edelson--and will be able to serve 160 patrons. It will have a small 15-20 seat bar and the brewery will be a five-barrel system capable of producing 150 gallons per batch, which is roughly half the capacity of the other Iron Hill sites.

Being smaller is not a concern, Edelson says. "We've gotten a lot more efficient with our floor plan and we're hoping we've learned some things over the last eight years," he laughed. Asked if, assuming the expected Bridge Street boom occurs, parking will be an issue, he noted that "they're building a new parking lot right across the street from our site. That's in the plan and in our lease."