Denver Strikes $271M Land Lease For Coke Distribution Center Near DIA
Denver City Council struck a $271M deal on April 5 with a Colorado Coca-Cola distributor to lease approximately 97 acres of land near Denver International Airport.
The company, Swire Infrastructure Inc., a subsidiary of Swire Coca-Cola USA, will lease land in the airport’s Second Creek Campus District located east of Tower Road and north of Peña Boulevard for at least 75 years. The deal also includes three 8-year extension options that could bring the total lease period up to 99 years.
Swire plans to build a more than 1.1M SF campus that includes a manufacturing, bottling and distribution center. It is expected to replace Swire’s manufacturing center on York Street and its sales office on East 40th Avenue, according to a proposal filed with the city council.
Ken Cope, vice president of real estate for the Denver airport, told city council that the biggest challenge for the project is making sure there are utilities to serve the development site. To that end, the airport will commit about $10M during each lease period to help Swire build out the necessary infrastructure. Swire will also get the right of first refusal for about 30 acres of land east of the project if the company decides to expand in the future.
Swire plans to present the project to the company’s board of directors during the fourth quarter of 2023. Groundbreaking for the project is expected to happen in 2025, Cope said.
Swire is planning an extensive community engagement process as the project moves forward, Jennifer Freeman, the company’s vice president of government affairs, told the city council. That includes designing a website with all of the project information and a dedicated email address for the public to submit comments.
The deal with Swire could be a boon for future development near Denver International Airport. A new report from CommercialCafé found Denver has the 10th-most-available plots of land for development out of the 20 most populous cities in the U.S., with nearly 18,000 acres available. The land is already drawing interest from big names like Microsoft and Blackstone-backed QTS Realty Trust, which have bought more than 300 acres of land near the airport in separate deals.
At the same time, the deal could also help Denver’s labor market. Swire operates eight facilities and employs about 1,250 people in Colorado alone. Overall, the company plans to invest between $350M and $500M in the project to create approximately 200 full-time jobs, according to the proposal.
“It’s exciting that we’re starting to see some of the on-airport development that we’ve been talking about for at least the last eight years,” Stacie Gilmore, who represents District 11, said during the meeting.
