By Gene Kemmeter

A conditional-use permit and a site plan for the proposed O’so Brewery in East Park Commerce Center on Stevens Point’s southeast side received the approval of the Stevens Point Plan Commission Monday, April 2.

Mark Buttera, owner of O’so, is proposing a 30,000-square-foot building with outdoor patio, parking lot, shipping and receiving area and hop fields on approximately 20 acres near the proposed southwest entrance to the Commerce Center, which was created as a “build-as-you-go” industrial park.

The parcel does not have an address yet and will be accessible through an extension of Venture Drive and a temporary route from County Road HH. A more permanent road from HH, east of County Road R, will be built later to provide access to O’so.

The brewery building will be a pre-fabricated metal panel manufacturing facility, a different metal panel, masonry and wood serving as façade materials on the west side, along with several windows, doors, and awning. The façade will also incorporate an outdoor patio area.

Buttera said the facility will also include a restaurant space that will be available for lease and will feature a pass-through window so the restaurant can serve the outdoor patio area.

Because the roads serving the brewery will be built later, Buttera asked that gravel be installed initially in the parking lot until a hard-surface road is completed, then the parking lot and other area will receive a hard-surface. Mike Ostrowski, Stevens Point community development director, said that road project should be completed in six to 12 months.

Buttera said the main feature of the northeast side in green space because that area will be used for drainage, and the property will include walking paths, disc golf, the hop fields, fruit trees and a kickball field, plus a drip irrigation area. The construction project will start early this summer and be completed by the end of 2018.

Ostrowski said the brewery is looked at as a tourism destination and will be located at a future gateway to the industrial park because it is a more of a commercial use instead of heavy industrial and thus more compatible will residential development that might occur in the neighborhood.