Carleton Grange Pub, an oasis for fans of soccer and British pub ambience in St Francis, is closing next month.

Eric Ellsworth, owner of the club at 3807 S. Packard Ave., cited road construction and parking issues in announcing the decision in an e-mail and on the bar's Web site, carletongrange.com.

The bar is slated to close Sept. 6.

Here is the text of Ellsworth's message announcing the closing to customers:

To our loyal guests,

Packard Avenue is scheduled to be under major construction beginning in early September. It is part of a larger project that the City of St. Francis has decided to do with the help of federal stimulus funds and approximately $400,000 in local tax revenue. Over the past five years, and especially since the stimulus project was announced, we have unsuccessfully asked the City Of St. Francis to fulfill their responsibility to construct public parking in the area surrounding our facility. This parking was clearly defined in our 2005 approval and its requirement can be easily found in the public record. Our 2005 approval also included a provision where we would pay for that parking through a special assessment.

We have posted an information page on our website explaining our parking situation in detail complete with public records from the City of St. Francis. Please see the link below this letter for more information.

Even though the Packard Avenue road construction project offered Saint Francis an opportunity to address this parking issue, it was passed by once again. Project designers and city officials have moved forward with a design that makes matters even worse. They are optionally eliminating a large number of parking spaces that our customers use regularly. They will use a large portion of the available local tax revenue along with stimulus funds to do it.

We have been notified in writing that the work on Packard will start the second week of September. Wisconsin Department of Transportation officials estimate that we will lose at least 40% of our sales during the project. We will also permanently lose approximately 27 on street parking spots -- most of which are closest to Carleton Grange Pub.

It is because of this project's inevitable negative affects on our operations that we now find it financially impossible to remain open. Our business will not be able to survive the short term loss of revenue from the construction work and the long term loss of revenue resulting from the lost parking. It is with regret that we must inform you that we will be closing our doors as of Monday, September 6th 2010. It is a shame that this stimulus project will actually result in the loss of the 25 jobs we created in 2005.

It is our intention to continue to try to find a solution to the parking situation. We hope to be able to re-open when the project is entirely finished and the parking that was deemed necessary for our business operations in 2005 is installed. As of now we don't have a time frame on when this will happen and therefore we will close down indefinitely.

Please note as of Saturday, August 21, 2010 we will no longer sell gift cards. Of course we will continue to accept gift cards now and in the future. The rewards program will also remain in effect going forward.

Thank you for your loyal support and patronage. State and local officials have mentioned hearing from many of you and we appreciate your continued support of our efforts. We have enjoyed serving you over the past five years. I am sorry that another solution could not be found in time to keep the Carleton Grange Pub open. We hope to see you again soon.

Stay tuned to OnMilwaukee.com for more developments on this story.