Grafton Chamber adds new life to an old building

When the Grafton Area Chamber of Commerce held a ribbon cutting and open house at its new offices on April 28, it was more than just a chance to show off the organization’s new quarters.

It was a chance to show off owner Dieter Wagner’s renovation of the historic building that the Chamber now calls home.

“It’s really a cool building,” Chamber Executive Director Elizabeth Mueller said.  “For years, people would just drive by it. Now they’re stopping in to see what’s been done.”

People have been requesting tours of the building since the open house, she said.

“The day after (the open house), it was crazy,” Mueller said. “People were talking about it — ‘I used to play in the parking lot. ‘My great-great-grandpa used to work in the brewery.’”

“They’re excited to see something be done in this repurposed building.”

Mueller said the Chamber, which moved into its new offices in mid-January, took the historical nature of the building into account when decorating.

Most of the furniture was repurposed, she said, and historic touches can be found throughout the offices.

Among the items on display are beer bottles from the William Weber Brewery and George Blessing Beverage Co.

“We’re still looking for historic items,” Mueller said.

The building more than doubles the Chamber’s space and allows for each employee to have their own space while still being open enough that everyone feels connected, Mueller said.

There’s also a spacious conference room that can be used by Chamber members and nonprofit organizations for meetings. That space is defined by a three-part piece of art by the late Don Henning that had been kept in storage for years.

“We get so many compliments on it,” Mueller said.

It also includes enough space that the Chamber could move the items it kept in storage into the building.

Those items include tables, chairs and tents, Mueller said.

“This is a huge step up,” she said.

The building at 1032-1038 12th Ave., known as Grafton Creative, is a large brick structure constructed in the 1800s.

The building — technically two connected structures — was home to a number of beverage companies throughout its life, Mueller said, including the J.B. Steinmetz Brewery in 1846, John Weber Brewery from 1884 to 1890, William Weber Brewery from 1890 to 1920 and Blessing Beverage Co. from 1920 to 1933.

The south portion of the building, which is not occupied by the Chamber, still has the old lager caves, a cool space where the beer was stored, she said.

When Wagner proposed renovating the building in 2023, he said he expected having five individual spaces for rent that would range from 2,000 to 3,500 square feet.

“The beautiful, well-crafted building itself was well built with turn-of-the-century design and construction creating architectural value that could be extended indefinitely into the future,” he said. “The building was over-engineered and built with the European craftsmanship of people who had been producing buildings for centuries that were designed to last for millennia.”

Wagner noted that since 1990 he had converted six 1800s-buildings in Walker’s Point in Milwaukee, structures that were “vacant, burned, bank-owned, slated for demolition, etc. Today these properties have a value of over $7 million.”

Mueller said the Chamber is the first tenant in the Grafton Creative space, but it won’t be the last. Wagner is currently talking to a number of potential tenants, she said.

The new building has given the Chamber a new vibrancy, she said, noting it’s located near downtown Grafton but doesn’t take up a retail space in the downtown district.

“Our visitors have probably quadrupled since we moved in here,” she said. “People are curious about our new space and about this building.

“People are excited to see something be done with this old building rather than it just remain vacant.”