Joliet official calls payout of MyGrain Brewing a ‘positive’ deal

The city is regaining access to improved space with a $250,000 payout to the owner of the former MyGrain Brewing Co., Joliet’s community development director said.

The Joliet City Council on Tuesday approved the payout, which will terminate the city lease with MyGrain.

“I think this is, mathematically anyway, a pretty solid proposal to move forward,” Community Development Director Dustin Anderson told the council before the vote.

The payment terminates a lease with MyGrain, which closed in August 2023 but retained a hold on the property under its lease with the city.

MyGrain operated a brewpub for six years before closing at Union Station, the vintage train station that the city partly owns and leases out for private business use.

The lease buyout makes the city the owner of brewery equipment for which it has no use, unless another brewpub wants to move into Union Station. The city also acquired restaurant furnishings at the former brewpub, which could be used by a future tenant.

The city views the space as chiefly suitable for a restaurant or bar, although Anderson has said Joliet will consider other uses.

Anderson pointed to MyGrain improvements as a plus when the city again tries to market the space.

MyGrain renovated space used by previous restaurants and created a new bar along with converting a former train station storage area with a dirt floor into a microbrewery with flooring.

The value of the improvements have been set at $2.5 million.

“The city will receive that $2.5 million improvement to its building at a cost of $250,000,” Anderson told the council Tuesday.

MyGrain failed despite an arrangement in which it operated rent-free.

But city officials said new conditions downtown could make a business more viable.

Those conditions include new ownership of the Joliet Slammers, the city’s professional baseball team that plays at a stadium up the street from Union Station.

The Slammers ownership group includes actor Bill Murray and the Veeck family, which has a background in both Minor League Baseball and Major League Baseball.

“Can we or have we reached out to the Slammers?” Joliet council member Jan Quillman asked at a Monday workshop meeting.

“We have,” Mayor Terry D’Arcy said.