Manhattan Project Beer Company to open Waco taproom near Baylor in 2027

Manhattan Project Beer Company just made its biggest move beyond Dallas, locking in a 15-year taproom site inside the Foster Pavilion parking garage near Baylor University. The Waco City Council approved the lease on April 21 for about 10,260 square feet at 600 S. University Parks Drive, a space that will take up roughly half of the first-floor retail area and comes with two five-year renewal options.

That approval matters because the city is treating the deal like a district-building project, not a simple landlord-tenant swap. Waco expects the lease to produce about $3.6 million over 15 years, while the city will spend up to $2.49 million to finish the first-floor retail shell. The buildout is designed to bring the unfinished garage space to white-box condition, with money set aside for mechanical, electrical, plumbing, framing and flooring work. The result is a full public-private finish for a site the city has long viewed as part of the Foster Pavilion plan.

For Waco drinkers, the location is the story. A taproom in a parking-garage setting next to Baylor gives Manhattan Project a built-in audience every time the Bears play, Foster Pavilion hosts an event, or visitors move through the University Parks Drive corridor. City leaders have framed the garage and pavilion complex as part of a mixed-use sports entertainment destination, and the brewery now becomes one of the clearest examples of that strategy in action. It is a bet that foot traffic from game days and event nights will spill into everyday business as well.

Manhattan Project fits that kind of site because the brand already knows how to run a destination room. The brewery traces its roots to 2010, when Karl Sanford, Misty Sanford and Jeremy Brodt first came together to design a beer for the Sanfords’ wedding. The company started making beer in 2016, then opened its Dallas taproom in late 2019 after building a following through contract brewing. In Dallas, the taproom has grown into a beer-and-food operation with coffee, a scratch kitchen, live music and 20 beer taps, which suggests the Waco location will be more than a neighborhood bar.

The target opening is May 2027, and the long runway underscores how much has to happen before the first pint is poured. But the lease approval already signals confidence from both the city and the brewery that Baylor-adjacent retail can work as a lasting craft beer anchor, not just a game-day stop.