One of the oldest industrial buildings in Helena, vacant for more than a year, will soon have a new manufacturing tenant - and some space open to the public as well.

Max Pigman, owner of Lewis and Clark Brewing Co., recently bought the old Columbia Paints factory on Dodge Avenue, and he intends to renovate the building and move both his brewing operation and taproom into the space sometime next summer.

The 30,000-square-foot building, which at one time was at least two separate buildings, cobbled together with a number of additions, hallways and catwalks, was vacated in January 2008 when the Columbia Paints factory closed. Columbia Paints, founded in Helena in 1947, was sold to Sherwin Williams in 2007, and the new owners closed the local factory.

Pigman said that once his operation moves in, he'll be able to quadruple his production capacity without buying any more equipment than he has in his current location, beneath the Brewhouse on Getchell Street.

"Right now we are capacitated in our space, and all of our storage is across town," Pigman said. "Our equipment would allow us to be a regional microbrewery, but our current facility does not allow us to do that."

In particular, Pigman plans to separate the brewing operation from the taproom. In his current location, taproom customers have to walk through the brewing space, which limits the hours beer-making can take place. By separating the two, Pigman said, he can add shifts - and employees - and increase production capacity.

He's shooting for a completion date sometime between July and September of next year.

Pigman said the new building, of which he plans to use about half for the beer business and lease the other half, will have more room for grain and keg storage, a much larger taproom, loading docks for freight delivery and the potential for an outside patio.

He plans to keep many architectural elements of the current building, including exposed wood and metal beams, rock walls from the original meat-packing plant and even a paint-splattered steel stairway as a tribute to the building's manufacturing history.

The building is a maze of offices, storage rooms of varying size, hallways, stairways and even an old freight elevator.

"From a storage/warehouse perspective, it's too broken up for a lot of people, but I need it broken up like that," Pigman said.

CWG Architects is working with Pigman on the redesign, and his brother's company, Pigman Builders of Hamilton, will serve as general contractor.

Though the hulking building is just a short block off North Montana Avenue, it has a profile that's low relative to its size. It's painted plain white and there's no signage indicating what's there, or what once was.

But Pigman said the location, close to one of the busiest roads in town, will be to his advantage once the business is open.

"It's going to be very easy to find the brewery, and I'm excited about revitalizing an area that's not the most attractive area in town," he said.

Ellen Baumler of the Montana Historical Society said the location was home to two buildings as early as 1888, one of which was the Montana Packing and Provision Co., a meat-packing business owned by T.C. Power. Power would go on to be one of Montana's first U.S. senators after statehood was granted.

The third floor of the building has no windows and features 20-foot ceilings. Enormous blocks of ice were hoisted up to the third floor, cooling the two lower floors where meat was hung.

The meat-packing operation was closed by 1892, Baumler said, but Power also owned an agriculture implement and grain mill right across the railroad tracks, and the building was at one time used as a seed warehouse.

The brewing business was founded as Sleeping Giant Brewing Co. in 1995. Pigman bought the business in 2002, and changed the name to Lewis and Clark Brewing two years later.

John Harrington: 447-4080 or john.harrington@helenair.com