Thatch,
Totally agree and this part is somewhat in place. We have buy-in from the city because they actually "chose" our proposal (request for proposal to buy city properties; ours was the one selected by city council vote); we had a pre-pre-application meeting prior to submission of the RFP and had already gone through the zoning "directors determination" to add micro-distilling to downtown zoning. HOWEVER...The fire safety folks and the downtown historical commission must "bless off" as well, and they are not the same people. It would look bad for the city to pick our proposal and not be able to get it moved through the minutia of the other roadblocks, but as this board has taught me, having the answers before the questions are asked makes the road a lot easier to navigate. I feel like the architect with those answers will inspire more warm fuzzies with the fire safety people; although the local guy will likely do so with the historical commission folks. I guess I'm asking who I should be more afraid of.. my gut tells me it's the fire guy.