Central Standard Craft Distillery will relocate its main distillery operations to a redesigned section of Harley-Davidson’s West Side campus beginning next year.
Central Standard’s purchase of the refurbished 73,000-square-foot space will offer full distillery production, a tasting room, distillery tours and private events, along with new job opportunities, according to the company. Harley-Davidson will continue to operate on the site, which it has occupied more than 120 years.
A formal groundbreaking is slated for late summer 2025, with the aim to open the new distillery to the public in late spring 2026.
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“We started Central Standard Craft Distillery to be a part of Milwaukee and grow with it. This partnership and expansion continue to affirm that mission,” Central Standard’s co-founder and president Pat McQuillan said in a release. “With this purchase, we’re excited to deepen our roots in the city we love and to show our commitment and investment in the Milwaukee community.”
Central Standard has invested in archival buildings, such as the sites for its Downtown Crafthouse & Kitchen (320 E. Clybourn St.) and its current West Side distillery (2330 W. Clybourn St.). The Crafthouse & Kitchen is located in a 151-year-old building that once housed the Wisconsin Leather Co.
Founded in 2014, Central Standard is a small batch, craft distillery that handcrafts bourbon, whiskey, vodka and gin from locally sourced ingredients, including cherries grown in Door County and honey harvested in Germantown.
The new space will give visitors an inside look into Central Standard’s distilling process in ways that have never been publicly available before, including production, research and development, barrel aging and distilling while showcasing the history of Harley-Davidson.
The expansion will also allow Central Standard to bring production under one roof, as operations are currently spread across three facilities in the Milwaukee area, and to grow its bottling and barreling capacity to 20 times that of its current distillery space.
Central Standards current production facility, which was purchased in 2017, will be marketed and sold by real estate partner Colliers International.
“With the success of our Crafthouse & Kitchen, as well as the regional growth of our spirits and ready-to-drink products, this expansion presents the perfect timing and opportunity for continued strategic growth,” Central Standard’s co-founder and CEO Evan Hughes said in a statement. “We’re well-positioned to exponentially grow our production capacity to continue to meet consumer demand for our offerings and to engage with the Milwaukee community in new and exciting ways.”
The project’s architect of record is Minnesota-based firm HGA, which will also participate in the selection process for the remainder of the construction team. HGA was also instrumental in designing Central Standard’s Crafthouse & Kitchen as well as Davidson Park, a new 4.8-acre public space designed to be a hub of community activity and ongoing neighborhood revitalization that opened last year on Harley-Davidson’s campus.
Harley-Davidson also recently began a refurbishment of the wider campus footprint of its Juneau Avenue site. The company announced last year that it was moving all operations tied to its electric motorcycle firm LiveWire to its historic West Side headquarters site, which has experienced considerable vacancy since the pandemic. LiveWire staff from the product development center in Wauwatosa and LiveWire’s Mountain View, California laboratory were moved to the campus.
Harley-Davison also operates a factory in Menomonee Falls, which produces the Big Twin, Milwaukee-Eight, and Sportster powertrains.
But Harley’s history is deeply rooted in the West Side campus. The first Harley-Davidson motorcycles were produced in a shed behind the Davidson family home on 37th Street and Highland Boulevard in 1903 before full-scale production began at the nearby Juneau Avenue campus.
“There is no brand more synonymous with Milwaukee than Harley-Davidson – with more than 120 years of continuous operations in the city,” Tori Termaat, chief human resources officer at Harley-Davidson and president of the Harley-Davidson Foundation, said in a statement. “Building on the great work spearheaded by the Harley-Davidson Foundation to rejuvenate the Juneau campus, we’re looking forward to it entering its next chapter. And as we enter our next phase of investment at Juneau Avenue, we’re excited to be welcoming Central Standard to the campus.”
