The Douglas County Plant Keurig Bought But Never Used Is Being Sold
An empty Douglasville facility was supposed to be ground zero for dreams of brewing your own glass of Coca-Cola. Now, the defunct plant has been picked up by a New York firm with plans to bring it back to life.
LRC Properties purchased 7705 Staples Drive, a 617K SF food production warehouse in Lithia Springs, from Bedford Systems for an undisclosed sum.
The facility that was the site for a big state economic development coup in 2014 when Keurig Green Mountain announced plans to produce its now-defunct Keurig Kold pods for Coca-Cola there. Bedford Systems is a joint venture entity between Keurig Green Mountain and AB InBev.
In February of 2014, Coke invested more than $1B in Keurig — known previously as Green Mountain Coffee Roasters — for a 10% stake in the company and to have its brands turned into Kold K-cups. In June of that year, Gov. Nathan Deal announced that Keurig Green Mountain would buy and open a $337M Keurig K-cup plant in Douglasville for its cold brewing beverage system, adding more than 500 jobs to the local economy.
Those jobs never happened.
Just two years later, Keurig announced that it was discontinuing its Keurig Kold system and would not open the Douglasville plant. The company offered consumers a full refund if they previously purchased the machine, which was priced between $299 and $369, according to Food Business Network.
"We canceled the tax incentive plan last year and the building is fully taxed," Douglas County Economic Development Authority Executive Director Chris Pumphrey said in an email to Bisnow.
He did not elaborate on the value of the incentive package, but described it as a 10-year tax abatement on the building and the equipment.
LRC — which also owns the nearly 2M SF distribution hub for Variety Wholesalers at 60 Herring Road in Newnan — is buying the facility without a tenant in tow and is marketing the property to specialty users, including food and beverage processing companies, advanced manufacturing firms and pharmaceutical companies, according to a recent press release.
LRC purchased 7705 Staples in a joint venture with Ladder Capital.
“For all practical purposes, the facility was built out but never used,” LRC Vice President of Acquisitions Greg Berman said.
But Berman said the firm is hopeful that it will strike a deal with a tenant within the next six months.
“We're in discussions with several groups right now that are interested in the facility,” he said.
Colliers International Atlanta senior vice presidents Lee Cardwell and Scott Plomgren, Assistant Vice President Harrison Marsteller and Managing Director Kevin Gallagher of Colliers' St. Louis office brokered the sale.
“It is one of the most advanced manufacturing facilities available for lease or purchase in the Southeast,” LRC principal Howard Lavitt said in the release. “It also provides an opportunity for us to bring quality manufacturing jobs to Douglas County and get this top-tier facility back into productive use.”
