Bend pub, shop could be redeveloped

Published 12:00 am Friday, December 25, 2015

A Bend landmark on Third Street might be heading for change — and its tenants for a change in location.

The owners of Platypus Pub and The Brew Shop, both located at 1203 NE Third St., are looking for a new home, said business co-owner Jeff Hawes.

Compass Commercial Real Estate Services is advertising space for lease in a potential retail development at the site, about two blocks north of NE Greenwood Avenue.

“Obviously they’re going to do something with the property,” Hawes said Monday. “We have a lease that’s good for a while.”

He declined to be more specific about the lease terms. The property owner declined comment on plans for the property.

Russell Huntamer, a broker with Compass Commercial, said a preliminary site plan includes razing the existing structure, which has been a church and restaurant before becoming a pub and homebrewing supply and retail beer shop, to make way for new construction.

A “national coffee chain” had signed a letter of intent to lease part of the space shown as 1,850 square feet on a flier for the property. The plan shows 9,400 square feet of total new construction, a possible drive-thru window and a parking lot with room for 42 cars. The design is “very preliminary,” Huntamer said.

“It would definitely be an improvement for that corridor,” he said Dec. 15.

The real estate firm needs a sufficient number of prospective tenants to move the project forward, Huntamer said. He declined to name the coffee chain. Deals that would bring tenants to the prospective retail project are “still in process,” he said at the time.

The property was home to a Nazarene church, and in August 1976, Bend’s first French restaurant, Le Bistro, opened there, according to The Bulletin archives. Ernesto’s Italian Restaurant followed Le Bistro and remained at the location until 2008.

Deschutes County assessed the property, which includes the 7,895-square-foot building and one-third-acre lot, at $757,110 for tax purposes and at $1.04 million real market value, according to property records.

The Brew Shop, a lure for homebrewers in Central Oregon, relocated there from its previous home on NE Division Street.

The shop owners opened the Platypus Pub in 2011. Before The Brew Shop moved to NE Third Street, it was the birthplace of Silver Moon Brewing, which is now on Greenwood Avenue and under new ownership.

— Reporter: 541-617-7815, jditzler@bendbulletin.com