Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to clarify that Atticus Hotel partners Brian Shea and Erin Stephenson are business partners and are not married, as an earlier version stated.

Construction is booming this summer in McMinnville as local officials and business owners seek to capitalize on strong demand for wine-country tourism.

Several projects are under way to take advantage of high-income visitors and attempt to expand business beyond Third Street, McMinnville’s downtown retail thoroughfare.

A major makeover is under way at Alpine Avenue, a downtown artery. The project is intended to link McMinnville’s historic Third Street, where tourist-friendly wine bars mix with longtime local haunts, and the Granary District, a former agricultural center that now hosts wineries, breweries and related businesses.

The Alpine Avenue project is funded by a transportation bond McMinnville voters passed in 2014. The project includes street surfacing, pedestrian improvements, bike lanes, utility upgrades and landscaping along four blocks of Alpine, from Northeast Seventh to 11th avenues.

McMinnville boosters hope Alpine Avenue transforms into a corridor of high-end restaurants, coffee shops and art galleries.

Ellen Brittan, co-owner of Brittan Vineyards, said Alpine Avenue will become “more mixed-use and enticing to walk through,” bridging the gap between downtown’s retail shops and the hands-on artisan manufacturing businesses of the Granary District.

“For us, it’s a positive thing,” said Tres Burns, associate winemaker at Brittan Vineyards. In the Granary District, he said “it sort of feels like you’re miles away from Third Street. Just getting those corridors improved, that improves the connection to downtown and to Third Street, which is important for us because we’re trying to be part of the downtown experience.”

McMinnville’s status as a tourist destination is intimately tied to Oregon’s growing reputation for winemaking. More than 200 wineries have sprouted within a 20-mile radius of McMinnville, and some Oregon pinot noirs have been compared to the best of Napa Valley and France.

McMinnville is among the major outposts for Oregon’s alcohol industry, which now outpaces all others for job growth, surpassing even the much-lauded Silicon Forest software industry, according to an analysis by Jones Lang LaSalle.

The alcohol industry, including wine, beer and distilled spirits manufacturers, generated 7,400 new jobs between January 2008 and September 2016, according to JLL.

McMinnville is benefiting from the boozy trend. In addition to wineries such as Coeur De Terre and Yamhill Valley, breweries such as Heater Allen and Golden Valley have contributed to the grape-and-grain scene.

Ellen and Robert Brittan founded their winery in 2008 after careers in Napa Valley. Ellen Brittan said the town has since changed.

“We’ve seen quite a bit of transition into higher-end restaurants, more quality retail,” she said.

With the winery scene comes high-end tourism, and the town has few hotel rooms to absorb it. A local partnership is stepping in to fill that gap with the Atticus Hotel at the intersection of Northeast Fourth Avenue and Ford Street.

An R&H Construction crew broke ground on the project May 15. The hotel, which is on track to open in spring 2018, will offer 36 rooms that average about $350 a night.

It follows other luxury wine-country developments such as The Allison Inn and Spa in Newberg.

The Atticus Hotel will fulfill an unmet market for luxury lodgings in downtown McMinnville, said Erin Stephenson, who is part of the ownership group for the project. The other partners are Brian Shea; her father, Rob Stephenson; and Jeb Bladine, who owns the lot and other downtown properties and is publisher of the local newspaper, the News-Register.

The design for the 22,640-square-foot, four-story building comes from architect Nathan Cooprider.

“We recognize there are some guests who don’t come and stay in McMinnville at all because there isn’t a hotel that can meet that full-service experience,” Erin Stephenson said.

The Atticus Hotel is the most significant ground-up construction under way this year. It follows major renovations of historic buildings, including one to suit McMenamins‘ 42-room Hotel Oregon, which occupies a 112-year-old building in the heart of Third Street.

In 2015, local businessman Bob Emrick completed a new building, called the Kaos Building at Third Street and Galloway streets. The project is anchored by a fine-dining restaurant, The Barberry, on the ground floor. The second floor holds offices and the third floor is occupied by a casual eatery, 1882 Grille.

One project coming later this year is Allegory Brewing, in a converted warehouse on Northeast Fourth Street. The project won a $100,000 grant as part of the state Historic Preservation Office‘s Main Street revitalization program.

The grant program is focused on supporting healthy downtowns, said Kuri Gill, grants and outreach coordinator for the Historic Preservation Office.

“Some of these downtowns are already vital, and we want to keep them that way,” Gill said.

The grant will go toward creating a taproom and beer garden at Allegory, at 777 N.E. Fourth St., with seating indoors and outdoors separated by roll-up garage doors. The building has 5,800 square feet, with an 8,000-square-foot parking lot.

The new brewery’s owner, David Sanguinetti, said Allegory will provide a missing way station between Third Street, the Granary District and Alpine Avenue.

“This might help with the gateway to those,” he said. “It’s a natural progression.”

Fourth Street has potential to extend the downtown tourist district, Sanguinetti said.

“I think Fourth Street is the next to develop,” he said.

Sanguinetti is well-known to locals as the proprietor of The Bitter Monk, a popular Third Street taproom. He’s hoping to open Allegory in July and self-distribute beer to the Portland market.

Also bringing life to Fourth Street is Type A Press, a boutique letterpress operation that produces stationery, promotional materials and business cards. The business was founded in 2010 by Chelsey Bladine, daughter of Jeb.

McMinnville has other tourist draws, chiefly the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum on Oregon Route 18 southeast of the town center.

Yet it is wine that drives the economy in McMinnville. Town officials have created a wine walk modeled after the Bend Ale Trail to encourage tourists to make their way around town.

One winery, Elizabeth Chambers Cellar, recently completed a $1 million renovation to attract wine drinkers. The winery is in a former diesel electric power plant at 455 N.E. Irvine St. that was in use from 1926 to 1978. The renovation retained the building’s brick bones but allows visitors to see a vast barrel room and aesthetic touches. A garden provides outdoor seating and often hosts events.

The winemaker, Michael Stevenson, said the town has continued to evolve since he arrived in 1994. He’s eager to see the town better connected.

“Every year is better and better,” he said.

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