MOUNT VERNON — Excavators broke ground Thursday on a 7 Brew Coffee shop on Coschocton Avenue.
The construction timeline is about seven weeks, according to Matt Gagliano of Pittsburgh-based Foundry Real Estate Development.
“This week, we’re going to be prepping the site and stripping the topsoil. Next week, we’re going to begin the footers for the building, for the freezer pad and the dumpster pad. We’ll pour them and [build] the stem walls,” he said.
“Then on Sept. 11, they’re going to come and set the building.”
A stem wall is a short, usually 12 to 36 inches high, concrete or masonry wall built on top of the footer. It raises the building’s floor above ground level, forming a crawl space. It creates a level base for the building and protects the wood framing from pests and soil moisture.
Gagliano said the building is prefabricated offsite and typically takes about five weeks to assemble.
“It takes about three days to finish setting the building, and then we’ll roll in the parking lot,” he said. “October 2 is when we’ll be wrapping everything up.”
Gagliano did not know an opening date.
“That just depends on final inspections and approvals through all different departments, but that’s the construction timeline frame,” he said. “It’s typically seven weeks start to finish, and this is Week 1. So that’s pretty quick.”
The coffee shop will have two lanes of customer drive-thru traffic.
Customers can enter and exit 7 Brew from Coshocton Avenue via right turns only. They can enter and exit either direction from Eastwood Drive.
There is no entrance or exit onto Vernonview Drive.
Land Bank clears path for development
The coffee shop will sit on parcels 66-01698000 and 66-00733000, the site of a former gas station. Coshocton Avenue, Vernonview Drive and Eastwood Drive surround the island.
The city bought the land in March 2013 and demolished the former gas station in September 2013. In August 2025, the city transferred the lots to the Knox County Land Bank.
“The Land Bank’s mission is to take unproductive land and put it into productive use,” Land Bank President Sam Filkins told Knox Pages at the time.
“The city asked us to help facilitate moving this property into productive use again. This is land the city does not want to continue to own.”
The Land Bank started negotiating with Brew & Build Real Properties last fall and sold the property to the LLC on Aug. 24 for $400,000.
“After closing costs and fees, the net proceeds from the sale will be returned to the City of Mount Vernon,” Filkins said.
The Land Bank will send $200,000 to the city in the next few days. It will hold $200,000 in escrow in case environmental concerns arise.
The Land Bank will release the escrow money when the final cost is determined, either 12 months from closing or once construction is completed, whichever comes first.
Filkins said he does not foresee any reason to dig into the escrow amount since the company has completed environmental studies. However, he noted the purchaser said it has encountered issues in other projects.
Environmental testing ensures site readiness
If an environmental issue needs remediation, Filkins said the company must produce two quotes.
Filkins has 24 hours to respond.
“If the company cannot find a second quote, I have two environmental companies that have said they would come and quote it within 24 hours,” Filkins said. “Again, I don’t anticipate that we’re going to use any of it, but if we do, we’re making sure that since that’s public money they’re getting access to that it’s being done on the up and up.”
Brew & Build completed a Phase 1 environmental study before it purchased the property.
“Phase 1 is just looking back at what was on the site historically. As soon as a Phase 1 shows there was a gas station on the site, that’s going to trigger a Phase 2 because there’s no way to know whether the tanks still there or whether were they taken care of correctly,” Filkins said.
“A bunch of questions come up automatically with a gas station, regardless of whether or not we can prove it was taken care of.”
Phase 2 includes soil boring testing for petroleum. Filkins said the bores came back clean.
Gagliano said the Mount Vernon location is 7 Brew’s last new establishment in 2026. The company opened a drive-thru in Delaware in June and in Ashland earlier this month.
