WeldWerks Brewing Co. has abandoned plans to open a taproom in Colorado Springs, citing delays and cost overruns that drove the project exponentially over budget during the three years it was in the works on the city’s west side.

“This project has experienced significant delays from the onset, some of which were inadvertent byproducts of our design and project decisions, but the vast majority of which were completely out of our control,” read a statement issued Tuesday by the Greeley-based craft brewer.

Weldwerks purchased the property near 31st Street and Colorado Avenue in 2019, with a plan to salvage as much of the original, historic house and former diner on the site as possible and build out to create an ambitious new vision for its first expansion beyond Weld County.

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Head brewer and co-founder Neil Fisher said the decision to back out came in early March, even as construction continued in the Springs and a banner teasing the future opening was raised at the site.

The company exhausted “every other viable option” in a bid to keep the Springs’ expansion on the table, but — after three years, with costs and delays continuing to mount and yet another anticipated grand opening back on the back burner — Fisher said the decision was made to cut bait.

“We could stomach a lot of delays and even costs, but when it came time to say, ‘If we pursue this, we could potentially put our growth at risk, even our overall business,’ it was clear it was time to move on. Which is tough for us,” Fisher said. “We really did try every single option, every way we could to move forward, and just kind of ran out of options.”

The award-winning brewer whose flagships include Juicy Bits IPA pointed to supply-chain constraints and COVID-19 related labor shortages that further delayed the timeline and drastically increased the overall budget for the project, announced in April 2019, originally with a projected opening date that year.

That timeline was quickly adjusted, and progress – including realignment of the original structure and a foundation rebuild – continued in fits and starts throughout the pandemic. By late last month, work had started up again at the site and all signs seemed to point to a long-awaited grand opening in late 2022. 

Alas, it wasn’t to be.

“I know it’s been something that we’ve really been looking forward to, and the Springs has too, for way longer than we anticipated. Even up until a few weeks before (the decision to scuttle plans), we were still optimistic we could make it work,” Fisher said.

But “there wasn’t a whole lot of optimism that costs would normalize anytime soon or that the overall state of things would improve enough to where we felt confident about a second location before we finished the other projects we have in the works.” 

Fisher said that WeldWerks intends to put the Springs property on the market and focus its energy and money on a project now in the works at its Greeley home base. 

A kitchen expansion — which also ran wildly over budget — wrapped in February; expansion of the production facility is underway, an adjustment that will help the brewery respond to one of the few boons it’s seen during the pandemic.

And hopefully poise it to revisit old dreams down the line. 

“As of January this year, we’re almost at capacity,” Fisher said, “so we’re brewing as much as we can every month and still not able to grow until we get some of these new production pieces of equipment and facilities upgraded.”