Former Graham city councilman Lee Kimrey has put his mixed-use property along West Elm Street in downtown Graham – currently home to a taproom, “Little Brothers Brewing Barrel & Bottle,” with an apartment above and attached garage in the rear – up for sale.
Kimrey built the structure in the location of the former Carver’s restaurant, which burned in January 2014.
[Story continues below photos from the 2014 fire.]
Kimrey had lived in the second-story apartment with his wife, Mindi Kimrey, for the past several years, after fully rehabbing the 119-year old shell that had been gutted by fire in January 2014.
A builder by trade, Kimrey confirmed for The Alamance News that he’s selling his property in downtown Graham but intends to build a new home and stay in the area.
Located at 104 and 106 West Elm Street, the building burned to the ground in January 2014, ultimately prompting then-tenant, Carvers on Elm, an eatery that had been a fixture in downtown Graham for more than 20 years, to reopen in a new location in Burlington.
Thus began Kimrey’s labor of love. The original shell of the building dates back to 1903; rubble and concrete were mostly all that remained after the fire in 2014. Kimrey eventually ended up removing three layers of concrete and “starting from scratch,” he recalled in a recent interview.
[Story continues below photos of the upstairs apartment.]
Kimrey said that he initially offered first right of refusal to Greensboro-based Little Brothers Brewing, which operates the Barrel & Bottle taproom on the ground floor of Kimrey’s building in the 100 block of West Elm Street, two doors down from the newspaper office.
The owners of the brewing company instead selected a site off Church Street in Greensboro to build an expansion, said Kimrey. “We kind of missed the window of opportunity – they had already settled on another piece [of property] to expand on the brewery,” Kimrey told the newspaper.
However, Barrel & Bottle is hoping to stay on as a tenant of the future owner, Kimrey said, adding, “We hope that whoever may purchase the building is going to welcome a tenant.”
Meanwhile, Kimrey confirmed for the newspaper Monday that he has temporarily paused work on another mixed-used development, tentatively named 106 North Marshall, at the edge of Graham’s downtown business district.
Kimrey pointed to supply chain disruptions and labor shortages that have rippled across the construction industry – and many other segments of the economy – as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Coming out of Covid, we put everything on hold,” Kimrey elaborated in the interview. “So we made the strategic decision to halt [work on that project] until the market seems to be a little more favorable on the material costs and labor costs, as well.”
The property at 104 and 106 West Elm Street, which Kimrey had completely rebuilt throughout by 2018, spans nearly 6,000 square feet (upstairs and downstairs), as well as an attached two-car garage at the rear, on just under a quarter of an acre. It is currently offered for sale at $995,000, according to the commercial real estate firm in Raleigh that listed the property late last month.
Alamance County tax records list the latest assessed value for the mixed-used property (described as “retail with apartment over”) at $552,287; and the latest assessed value for an attached 240-square foot office is listed at $11,220.
