Moorestown council approved an ordinance to permit breweries, distilleries and winery salerooms in town in 2021.
Fast forward to February of this year, when the Community House of Moorestown, Rowan College at Burlington County and King’s Road Brewing Company in Haddonfield announced plans to launch New Jersey’s first education-based microbrewery at the Community House.
“This is a great example of how Rowan College at Burlington County can partner with industry and the community to provide meaningful pathways to employment in underserved industries,” said college President Dr. Michael A. Cioce.
“Establishing the state’s first educational microbrewery at a historic venue will create educational and career opportunities for students, economic growth for downtown and a new chapter for the storied history for a local Moorestown gem.”
The Community House is not funded by tax dollars and subsists entirely on rental fees and generous donations from the community. The estate has served as a gathering place for events and activities dating back to 1926, and a microbrewery – built in re-purposed space that used to house an indoor pool – is meant as an educational component to the organization’s mission and purpose.
“For eight years, we’ve been trying to figure out what it is we want to do with this area,” Haynes Hendrickson, vice president of the Community House board of trustees, said of the pool space. “At the same time our business as a whole, as a nonprofit for over 100 years, has changed.”
The house was enlarged in 1931 to provide additional meeting space, according to the nonprofit’s website. The first-floor area was remodeled in 1993 to allow disabled individuals access to the meeting rooms, and in 2008, the gymnasium was converted into an elegant ballroom.
The garden room was refurbished in 2011 and the main lobby area remodeled in 2013. After the building sustained a fire two years later, the club room, lobby and upstairs area – which now includes a bridal suite – were restored. In 2017, the library space, home to the original Moorestown library, was brought back to its original appearance.
“About three years ago, when the township passed an ordinance to allow for breweries and tasting rooms and distilleries on the Main Street corridor, we thought this is a great opportunity for us to continue to be part of the fabric of Main Street, and also adding (a) really, really good boost to our sustainability of having a long-term tenant that could be a brewery,” Hendrickson explained.
Interest in developing a relationship between the Community House and Rowan centered on a mutual desire to create an educational pathway into the craft brewing industry, while finding a new and unique use for the pool space. The program will include classroom education and hands-on experience in launching and running a microbrewery just a few miles away from the Rowan campus in Mount Laurel.
A rendering of the planned microbrewery at Rowan College at Burlington County that will facilitate the college’s planned brewery curriculum.
“Three objectives that we found in putting this together with RCBC and King’s Road were one, our own financial stability; two, hopefully the economic impact and change to the Main Street corridor …” Hendrickson noted. ‘We feel like if we can do this here, it will really bring people to Main Street, increase the foot traffic and you’ll have more stores, more restaurants …
‘And then the third great part of this with RCBC is getting ourselves into the educational fabric of Burlington County and Moorestown.”
Rowan got a grant from the state’s Higher Education Equipment Leasing Fund to secure necessary equipment for a microbrewery program. The college is creating an associate’s degree curriculum for fall of 2025, with a certificate program available this fall so students can begin to complete general requirements before the curriculum is approved.
“I am thrilled that the historic pool area of the community house will once again serve as a thriving, exciting place for the public to enjoy,” said Moorestown Mayor Nicole Gillespie. “I am confident this can be another amazing asset for Main Street, where people can gather, connect and enjoy not only exceptional beer but also a sense of community.”
The future brewery still needs to reach fundraising goals and then receive approval from council and the state’s Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, according to an article on the Moorestown Patch website. But organizers project it will open in late 2025 or early 2026.
Bob Hochgertel, co-owner and managing director of King’s Road, looks forward to seeing a community hub develop in Moorestown as it did in the brewery’s original Haddonfield location.
“King’s Road Brewing Company has helped in transforming Haddonfield,” he emphasized. “Through our commitment to quality craft beer and community involvement, we’ve become a catalyst for positive economic and social change in Haddonfield. We believe the same can be true in Moorestown, and Main Street in Moorestown is a physical continuation of the historic ‘King’s Road,’ from which the brewery takes its name.”
The Community House has established what it calls the Founder’s Club to help fundraise the brewery project.
“We’re trying to find 300 members in the community that will want to be recognized forever in the brewery, but be a donor to the Community House to help us get this started,” Hendrickson said.
“You can think 300 is not a big number or you can think 300 is a big number, but we’re ambitious that we can get there in this community with 300 people that really would not only enjoy this, but think (it) is a worthy investment to help the Community House help the town.”
For more information on the Founder’s Club, visit www.communityhousebrewery.com/founders-club.
“The partnership with King’s Road and RCBC has been wonderful,” Hendrickson observed. “They have their own businesses to run, but we all have this entity that will, in different ways, help us all out and just provide a whole new experience on Main Street.”
