COMMON CAUSE: BURLINGTON'S NEW CO-OP BREWERY ADDS A SHINE TO ITS REVITALIZED DOWNTOWN.

AuthorHlavaty, Greg
PositionTRIAD

Burlington may not be a famous beer town like Asheville or Milwaukee, but it now sports one of the nation's few cooperatively owned breweries. Burlington Beer Works, which includes a restaurant, has more than 2,100 owners who have bought $100 or $200 shares in the for-profit C corporation. Each investor is limited to one voting share to ensure equal voting.

The opening in March came six years after Ian Baltutis, the city's current mayor, Eric Henry, owner of T-shirt company TS Designs, and four partners incorporated the business and began selling ownership shares. There are fewer than 10 co-op breweries in the U.S., board member Hal Vincent says.

For those involved in the project, love of beer and good food is secondary to a "desire to create a vibrant, lively, rich downtown," says Vincent, who is a lecturer in communications at Elon University. Like many comparable N.C. towns, center-city Burlington has its share of empty spaces, but it also has a big advantage: Locally based LabCorp owns several historic buildings. The company won't say how many of its 3,200 Alamance County staff work downtown. Nearly 60,000 people work globally for the $15 billion lab-testing and drug-development company.

It took more than a year to settle on a location for the brewery. Once the Front Street building was selected, board member and paralegal Sharon Dent says it took...

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