Deschutes Brewery and Public House in downtown Bend, Oregon, Friday, March 17, 2017.
Bradley W. Parks / OPB
The CEO of Bend-based Deschutes Brewery insists the company still plans to move forward with its expansion to the East Coast.
CEO Michael LaLonde says plans to build a brewery in Roanoke, Virginia, have not changed despite news reports that the company was "re-thinking" its plans – reports LaLonde characterized as "inaccurate."
"We are still operating as we always said we would — by breaking ground in 2019 and selling beer by 2021," LaLonde said. "That's still our plan."
But that plan can still change. This week the company decided not to sign an agreement with the city that would have required Deschutes to hire a certain number of employees and operate under the city's timeline. In exchange, the city would forgive the company's loan for the land.
In 2016, then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe announced the company would invest $85 million to build the facility in Roanoke and that the company was expected to create more than 100 new jobs.
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LaLonde said a competitive business environment and a period of market adjustment in the craft brewing industry drove the company's decision to close on the land purchase in Roanoke, but not under the city's agreement.
"This move just gave us the flexibility we need in case anything were to change in the marketplace," LaLonde said. "We could speed it up, we could slow it down, but right now we're operating within those [original] timeframes."
LaLonde says the Trump administration's decision to impose new steel and aluminum tariffs in March did not impact the company's decisions regarding Roanoke. He says he does expect the tariffs will affect the company, though just how much remains unclear.
That same month, the company decided to shift packaging from bottles to cans.