Present Day
When Dale Swope and Joe Kokolakis purchased the shell of a building in 1999 known as The Florida Brewing Company, there was a vision of grandeur, tempered with a reality of risk. The brick walls had been erected more than 100 years prior to our purchase and had fallen deeply into disrepair as the building stood vacant for 25 years. Prior to this, parts of the building had been used for multiple and varied purposes, damaging and defacing the interior.
They approached The Florida Brewing Company building’s neighbor, Curts Gaines Hall Jones Architects, with the project. The overreaching goal was to accurately preserve the historic architecture.
The logistical problems involved in updating a 100-year-old building to a space for modern uses were many in comparison to what we foresaw at the building’s purchase.
The final product has been more than we ever expected! Every part of the building has a grand and open feel kept warm by the exposed brick walls. Historic aspects of the building we originally thought would be lost due to modern fire and building codes were preserved due to the ingenuity of the design team. The use of interior glass walls and skylights helped to allow us to divide the large spaces into rooms necessary in a modern office, without blocking natural sunlight.
Just as the brewery had been a historical accomplishment and technological wonder of its time, history meets technology again in the brewery of today. The Florida Brewing Company building is now home to a modern law office, Swope, Rodante P.A., a computer design firm, ASD (Associated Space and Design).