CRANBERRY TWP - The former Hereford & Hops brewpub site on Route 228 is scheduled to go up for Butler County Sheriff's sale.

The property listed is for the sheriff's sale May 15 at the courthouse.

Hereford & Hops owners Brewmasters of Cranberry Township filed for Chapter 11 protection in December 2007.

The brew pub, which is in the shadow of the new Westinghouse Electric headquarters under construction, closed several months later.

The property has been for sale since this past winter through Pittsburgh-based Grubb & Ellis before its sheriff's sale posting this week.

David Glickman, vice president with Grubb & Ellis, said the company will continue to market the property until the sheriff's sale.

Glickman said the bank may choose to buy it back at the sale, and if that occurred, what happens with the site would be "anyone's guess."

Glickman said there has been a lot of interest in the property, but there has been trouble with getting financing.

The Pittsburgh-based Templar Development, headed by Cranberry Township resident and real estate professional Mark Veon, Wayne Hippo and Richard Bowen, had an agreement to buy the property and had land development plans approved by the township to build a suites hotel on the site.

However, late last year the group backed out of a deal to buy the property for about $5 million from Grubb & Ellis. The group had planned to build a Cambria Suites hotel there.

Veon did not return a call seeking comment.

Ron Henshaw, director of community development for Cranberry, said plans for a Cambria Suites are not dead and that the development group is still working on financing the project and assembling the right partners.

"The Cambria Suites developer remains very hopeful that they will be able to make the deal happen and construct a hotel on the site," Henshaw said.

"The property is or was under agreement with a realty company. If they let the agreement expire, the property may go up for sheriff's sale. If that happens, the Cambria Suites developer may try to purchase the property at the sheriff's sale or negotiate a deal with the new purchaser after the sheriff's sale."

Last September, the township had approved plans for the new hotel, which would be four-story, 84,705-square-foot building.