The Fenton Winery & Brewery - A Great area Venue for Special Events

One of the greatest benefits of being an Ambassador for the Huron Valley Chamber of Commerce is the opportunity to meet the owners and staffs of area businesses. Recently I got reacquainted with Joe Sirl from Fenton Winery & Brewery, which is located just north of downtown Fenton. Joe does a lot of their community outreach and marketing stuff and he gave me an update on their banquet capabilities. I visited them when they first opened a few years ago and they had great plans for the utilization of the facility that they had just moved into at the time. It was good to hear from Joe that those plans have come to fruition and the property now offers a great venue for special events.

Fenton Winery & Brewery is the place for your event.

Indoor & Outdoor; it’s all here.

Weddings

Receptions

Rehearsal Dinners

Graduations

Birthday Parties

Reunions

Showers

Proms

Holiday Parties

Anniversary Parties

Fundraisers

Conferences

Our Banquet & Event building seats up to 280 guests and provides a beautifully rustic

feeling.  Uniquely built, cedar sided, and set back in a wooded setting, this venue will compliment any event.  Included is an outdoor patio area complete with a stone fireplace and an area for seating up to 150 people.  Our guests have the option of true one-stop shopping to actualize their vision for events.  Bridal and Grooms suites, on-site ceremonies, outdoor weddings with an indoor backup plan, in-house catering, and a developed network of partnering vendors for additional décor and entertainment services are among the most valued ease of planning features.  

We offer an acre of park like space outdoors that can be outfitted to hold events up to 300 people during those gorgeous Michigan months.  If you are seeking a smaller, more intimate location, our taproom area is cozy, inviting and has space for up to 35 people.  Our Banquet & Event Coordinators work with each guest individually to plan and execute the perfect event. Our chef has designed complete menus

featuring delicious entrees, tasty appetizers & luncheon or casual foods to fit a wide variety of banquet needs.  Our coordinators will happily arrange & price any specialty items that you desire.

Each year as we celebrate our Anniversary in late January a reflection occurs of what drives the continued growth of Fenton Winery & Brewery.  Events like our Mug & Stem Club Appreciation Dinner highlight the support and advocacy of local individuals which we are incredibly fortunate to have received by the bushel over the last 9 years.  Without our surrounding community believing in our mission, the current set-up of 20,000ft. split between two buildings and nearly 5 acres of total property would not bear our name.  It is a far cry from the 2,000 suite in a strip mall on N. Leroy St that was originally called home.

The passion to continue to create jobs and provide a hub of community is of vital importance and makes the long days profoundly worth it.  We have had the pleasure of working with seemingly countless community organizations and remain dedicated to expanding our scope.  The mutual support with groups such as the Lions Club, area Chambers of Commerce, Adopt-a-Pet, local schools, cancer and other health based organizations, small

business and community development groups is the most rewarding part of Fenton Winery & Brewery.  

It is an absolute honor to be chosen to partake in major life celebrations, like weddings and birthdays, and work with causes that so many dedicate their valuable time to propping up.  Those are the things that allow us to have such an incredible staff, a client base of friends, and insight into the strength of those we are surrounded by in our neighboring towns. -Joe Sirl

Joe provided me with the write-up above and the pictures. If you haven’t checked out the Fenton Winery and Brewery, you owe it to yourself to take the drive to Fenton, Michigan and on through town on N. Leroy Street, which turns into Fenton Rd. About 2-3 miles out of town you’ll hit N. Long Lake Rd and see the Fenton Winery and Brewery. The address is 1370 N Long Lake Rd, Fenton, MI 48430. Call ahead if you aren’t sure that they’ll be open at (810) 373-4194. They are closed on Monday’s but open most other days. Their web site is http://fentonbrewery.com/. Check out this great local event venue for your event or just stop in and sample the great craft beers and wines that are made there. 

The 2008 outlook

I've been reading various predictions for the national real estate market for 2008 and the news does not appear to be good at first glance. Housing starts for new-builds are still way down and expected to stay that way through much of the year. The re-sale homes inventory is still way up, with more expected on the market as ARMs reset (bailout or no bailout there will be plenty of ARM-driven foreclosures this year as there were last). Home values are also projected to continue the slide in 2008, with most economists predicting a landing somewhere around 20-30% less value for homes that were in the rapid appreciation "real estate bubble" zones (especially California, Florida, Nevada and Colorado). We've already lost more real estate value in Michigan than any other state (see my post of December 22 - Oh Great! We're #1 Again!).

Pretty dark stuff. So where is my little ray of sunshine, my glimmer of hope? I think as much as anything it's in the fact that we've been out ahead of these trends in Michigan all along. My gut feel is that we're at the "been there, done that" stage while the rest of the country is just getting to the bad parts. Sure we've still got quite an inventory overhang and foreclosures still make up about 6-8% of the inventory on the market; but, we've kind of plateaued and have been bouncing along the bottom for a while now. Quite a few sellers gave up and took their homes off the market and buyers have been snapping up the foreclosures quickly; so, our inventory adjustment has already kicked in a bit.

Another factor is that our sellers have had the time to adjust and absorb the bad news about property values and many have decided that "it is what it is" and they have become more realistic about their selling prices. They aren't necessarily happy, but they've decided to get on with life and take what they can get out of their houses. The sellers who are still hurting are the ones that over-mortgaged their homes or who've only owned the home for a short time (2-3 years) and now have to sell. There is little that can be done for those folks, so many have put their homes up for lease instead and put their dreams on hold.

The final supply-side factor that gives me hope for our market is that our local builders stopped building over a year ago - some two years ago. Many have exited the state and sold off the stalled projects or land that they were developing. Just in my little corner of the world (Milford, MI), of the 8-9 new-build developments that were underway a couple of years ago, all but 1-2 are stalled, so not a lot of new-build inventory is coming on line. And that's actually a good thing, right now; although, I doubt that the local builders see it that way.

On the demand side, I'm seeing more buyers out right now than I've seen in quite some time. Many are out looking for foreclosure bargains and that's OK. Some have just waited about as long as they can for the market to bottom out and are looking for good deals on move-in-ready housing. A few, who were frozen into inaction by the upheavals in the automotive industry, now feel secure enough to start looking for that "move-up" house that they've wanted for some time. And we even have a few new companies moving into Michigan with workers who will need housing. All of a sudden, I'm working with more active buyers than I've had in 2-3 years. These are all good things that give hope.

I think it will probably take the first 3-5 months of 2008 for all of the new laws that Congress has passed (and will pass early in the year) to kick in and for buyers to get used to the new credit landscape (the days of the zero down, 100% mortgage will be long gone in 2008; but remember that the FHA limit will be raised to $417,000 in 2008 (see my post of Dec 21 - Congress Slays the Dragon), which will cover the "sweet spot" in our market). So, certainly by spring, we should start seeing a comeback in Michigan. There likely will still be plenty of foreclosures and they will make the headlines; but, value shoppers will likely find that they don't need to settle for some stripped and damaged, fixer-upper foreclosure house in order to get a good deal. Good deals are out there right now for move-in-ready homes and more are on the way. And buyers are out there now, with more on the way.

So there is hope. And, where hope lives good things can happen.