Taps at Rock Brothers Brewing in Ybor City, Florida. The tasting room is still not open, but ‘The Attic’ music venue above the room is open tonight. Credit: facebook.com

Construction on Rock Brothers Brewing's new Ybor City headquarters and music venue started about nine months ago. Now — after delays related to the surprises one finds when renovating a 120-year-old building — the building is open. Mostly.

Just after 1 p.m. on December 9, the Tampa Fire Marshall gave The Attic (a 150-person venue above the future tasting room) a temporary permit. There are one or two items still left to be addressed, but Rock Bros. co-founder Kevin Lilly told CL that The Attic is a go for a soft opening tonight featuring singer-songwriter Will Jay.

There is still no date on an opening for Rock Bros. tasting room, but for now Lilly is just happy to get some music going.

"I can't believe it," he said in a phone call. "We're only open upstairs and the tasting room is not open, but I'm excited."

Tomorrow's show featuring Shawn Mullins in on. A show from Michael Tolcher and a two-night sold out stand by J.J. Grey are also 100-percent on, according to Lilly.

In an April story, CL pointed out that Rock Brothers purchased the historic King Greco Hardware building on the corner of 8th Avenue and 15th Street in Ybor City in 2015, and received zoning approval from the City of Tampa relatively quickly. But acquiring permits to begin work on a structure that was built in 1895 and hadn’t seen much in the way of improvements since the plumbing was installed sometime in the ’60s proved a challenging and slow-going process.

"We were supposed to be open in March," Lilly added before hanging up to ready the room, "but I'm excited."

Information on shows can be found via Ticketfly. This is a developing story and we'll add more details as they become available.

Here's some video of Mark Etherington playing in the still unfinished space over the summer. Watch another Attic Sessions video featuring Justin Thomas Brown here.