Black-owned Victor George Spirits said the Fort Lauderdale Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) board voted unanimously to provide $2,450,000 to help fund construction cost of a 15,000-square-foot facility that will house a distillery, restaurant, cigar bar, whiskey lounge, co working space and a rooftop bar and lounge located on historic Sistrunk Boulevard.
Victor G Harvey, owner of nationally distributed Victor George Vodka “VG“, through his development company, Northeast 6th Development will use the forgivable loan alongside his own investment and financing provided by a local bank to help transform a once vibrant area back to a destination where neighborhood residents, out of town visitors and other locals can dine, drink, and tour the distillery, tasting new and unique craft spirits. This new building will be named The Victory Building after the historic Victory Theatre once located on Sistrunk. This was the mecca of entertainment for Black people in Fort Lauderdale and the only theatre they could attend up until the end of segregation in 1964.
“As our core brand VG continues to grow nationwide, we are committed to helping our own city grow, particularly the Sistrunk corridor. This has been a long process, but we stayed the course,” said Harvey. Through these difficult times our focus was to keep all of our employees working and get to this point, which we were able to do. This building will allow the creation of several more job opportunities, with most of the hiring coming from within the neighborhood.”