More than five years after developers Tom and Keith Cobach announced plans to open a distillery and tasting room in Clermont, the area’s first Clermont, plans for the project were scrapped.
In November 2019, the pair signed on to develop a vacant six-acre location at the old steel manufacturing plant at the intersection of State Road 50 and 12th Avenue in Clermont. They were intended to partner with the award-winning Washington state craft business, Heritage Distilling.
At the time, Clermont City Council approved changes to zoning from the M-1 industry to PUD or planned unit development, allowing the Heritage Square Project to advance the master plan that requires up to six buildings and up to 60,000 square feet of space.
But the changes brought about by the Covid pandemic and the state’s restrictions on the amount of distillation spirit that can be produced have led developers to abandon the original plan, Tom Cobach said. Currently, they are trying to rezone the property for general commercial use, according to a report from GrowthSpotter.
At the Planning Committee meeting on May 6, the proposed ordinance rezoning property was voted 6-1 with Commissioner Michael Kramer as the only “yes” vote. The ordinance then proceeded to the city council on May 13th.
“I accepted a PUD that was drained because it was an industry zoned before I bought it and didn’t want to build a distillery or anything else, but because Florida didn’t give 250,000 gallons and couldn’t operate $18 million to put it in the project without doing it,” he said at the council meeting. “I’m going back to the commercial and see what happens from there.”
City Council continues to contemplate change. At its latest meeting, held on June 10th, the city council unanimously voted for discussions on the rezoning plan until June 24th.
The project was the first heritage distillery in the southeastern United States and the first distillery and tasting room in Clermont. Heritage Distilling creates a variety of spirits, including bourbon, whiskey, vodka, rum, gin.
Their brown sugar bourbon was named “The World’s Best Flavored Whiskey” by Whiskey Magazine in 2018 and 2019. They won the award again earlier this year for their cocoa bomb chocolate whiskey.
In a brief interview with GrowthSpotter, Kovatch said that the property currently has “multiple plans to do multiple things” and that he “is not free” to talk about certain potential uses.
