A five-building complex on North 11th Street, which include the current home of Brooklyn Brewery, has sold for $16 million. The new owner plans to convert the buildings to residential use. Fear not, though – the brewery has a lease through 2025.

(Crain’s says that these buildings were originally built to house a Dr. Brown’s soda factory, but the buildings that house the brewery (and the Brooklyn Bowl) were built between 1886 and 1907 as part of the Hecla Irons Works. The other portion of the development site was once part of the N.Y. Quinine and Chemical Works.)

Oops – wrong side of the street. The properties that sold are not where Brooklyn has its brewery and tours, but the warehouse on Berry. The site is the eastern half of the block fronting Berry, between North 10th and North 11th Streets. Four of the buildings were built by Hecla Iron Works (including the building that housed its offices and showrooms on North 11th (1896-97, Niels Pouslon, architect), which is a city landmark); the fifth building, 56-60 Berry, is a three-story reinforced-concrete bottling plant built by the Carl H. Schultz Corp., a manufacturer of mineral water (1928-29, Francisco & Jacobus, architects). Schultz had acquired the entire property in 1928 for use as manufacturing and bottling. In 1929, Schultz merged with Schoneberger & Noble (manufacturer of Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray soda) and the Brownie Corporation (manufacturer of a chocolate soda) to form the American Beverage Co. So the site did manufacture Dr. Brown’s soda, but it wasn’t built as such. (The origins of Dr. Brown’s turn out to be very murky – I have a research team on it.)