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The Novato City Council has entered into exclusive negotiations with San Francisco Brewing Co. for a proposal to convert the city’s century-old train depot into a downtown beer garden and park.

The San Francisco Brewing Co., which operates out of Ghiradelli Square in San Francisco, is proposing to build the outdoor beer garden and eatery at the nearly 1-acre depot site at 695 Grant Ave. near the existing SMART train station.

The City Council’s unanimous approval of the negotiations last week will begin a nearly yearlong process before a final design for the beer garden is brought before the council in early 2023. The company plans to hold a public meeting this month to hear feedback on its proposal, though a date has yet to be set.

Ryan Gray, a project partner with San Francisco Brewing Co., told the council last week, “Essentially our vision here is to create a family-friendly park that happens to serve food and drinks.”

While currently serving as an overflow parking lot for the business hub in Old Town, the depot has a long history in Novato dating back to the late 19th century.

The existing one-story depot was built in 1917 for the Northwestern Pacific Railroad by D.J. Patterson, an American architect who constructed several train stations throughout California and parts of the west, according to a 2017 historical evaluation of the site.

Patterson’s depot replaced an older depot that was constructed in 1879 when the railroad company first expanded to Novato, opening up local agricultural producers to sell to new markets and allowing immigrants to settle into the area. The station also had a freight depot and arcade, which were demolished in 2007 after being damaged by earlier fires.

After passenger train service to Novato ended in 1959, the depot has remained vacant except for brief usage as a Marin County sheriff’s substation from 1960 to 1962 and housing model trains in 1982.

Two fires in 1982 and 1995 damaged the depot. The city reshingled the roof and repainted the building in the 2000s. Passenger rail service was restored at the site after SMART completed its downtown station in late 2019.

Novato has been eyeing new uses for the depot property since acquiring it from SMART in 2012. Proposals for outdoor beer gardens and eateries were submitted in 2018 but the onset of the pandemic in 2020 caused those to be withdrawn. The station began to draw new interest in 2021, with the San Francisco Brewing Co.’s beer garden being one of three unsolicited proposals the city received.

“We have heard nothing but really high praises for this project to come to Novato,” San Francisco Brewing Co. owner Josh Leavy told the council last week.

The Novato Chamber of Commerce has endorsed the beer garden.

“We hope you move forward with this expeditiously because the depot has been vacant for quite some time,” Novato Chamber of Commerce chief executive officer Coy Smith told the council. “And we’re excited to see someone willing to invest their time and their energy to move forward on this.”

An early design concept the company proposed last year would use repurposed shipping containers to house four to five food vendors and a beer garden at the site. However, the company based that early concept under the assumption that it would be purchasing the property rather than leasing it from the city.

“At this point in time, we’re just starting over and going back to the drawing board,” Gray said Tuesday.

Councilwoman Pat Eklund questioned why the city isn’t considering selling the property so that it could generate more property tax revenue for the city and reduce city costs that would result from a required change in land use designation at the site.

Staff stated that any surplus land the city designates is subject to new state laws that require the city to prioritize negotiations with buyers who plan to build housing, school facilities, parks or open space for 60 days before the parcel can be put on the open market.

Novato Councilman Mark Milberg called on the brewing company to provide notice to nearby residents.

“It’s greatly impacting the people there as well as the neighborhood beyond it,” Milberg said of the potential development.

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