PepsiCo Inc. officials recently announced the global food and beverage giant will extend its 42-year commitment to Westchester County with an approximately $243 million investment in a major renovations project at its corporate headquarters in Purchase.
The company”™s decision, which will keep 1,100 jobs on its 152-acre Anderson Hill Road campus, came after PepsiCo officials considered relocation options in Connecticut, Texas and North Carolina.
Scheduled to start in the first quarter of 2013, the 30-month project will employ about 500 construction workers a year, for a total of 1,250 jobs, said Kathy Alfano, PepsiCo director of economic development.
Alfano told Westchester County Industrial Development Agency (IDA) officials that PepsiCo explored many alternatives to staying in Purchase, where it opened its 440,000-square-foot headquarters in 1970. To make the renovations project financially competitive with relocation offers outside New York, the company needed a sales tax exemption on project purchases and a property tax abatement, she said.
The IDA board unanimously approved a straight-lease transaction with the company that allows for the sales tax exemption and a 15-year PILOT agreement that reduces the company”™s annual payments in property taxes.
County IDA Executive Director Eileen Mildenberger said the specific value of the sales tax exemption has not been determined. The property tax abatement will amount to “several million dollars,” she said.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the state will award $4 million in Excelsior tax credits to PepsiCo through Empire State Development for retaining jobs in Purchase.
“This is about the biggest IDA project we”™ve had in 10 years,” said Westchester County Director of Economic Development Laurence Gottlieb. He said county officials worked for about three years with PepsiCo officials to keep the company in Purchase.
Town of Harrison officials in 2010 approved PepsiCo”™s “Project Renew” master plan to improve its Purchase office space to accommodate future operations while maintaining its parklike natural setting and publicly accessible sculpture garden. PepsiCo officials at the time said there was no timetable for the planned three-phase project, which in the first phase will add a 15,000-square-foot welcome center on Anderson Hill Road and a 45,000-sqaure-foot glass atrium at the center of PepsiCo”™s interconnected office buildings.
The project will involve major interior renovations to all seven office buildings on the campus, attorney Frank S. McCullough Jr. told IDA officials. McCullough”™s White Plains firm, McCullough, Goldberger & Staudt L.L.P., has long represented PepsiCo in the county.
“This is a recommitment to Westchester, Harrison and New York for this term of 15 years,” McCullough said.
The project will upgrade the facility”™s outdated technology and increase office space capacity by 15 percent. New building infrastructure is expected to reduce energy use by 22 percent, water use by 57 percent and greenhouse gas emissions by 57 percent. The “green” project is expected to meet silver-certification standards of the U.S. Green Building Council”™s Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design program.
Employees displaced during construction will work from swing space at PepsiCo”™s bottling division headquarters in Somers and at an unannounced location in lower Westchester. One location considered by PepsiCo officials is the former headquarters building of Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide Inc. at 1111 Westchester Ave. in White Plains.
In early 2011, PepsiCo”™s bottling division, Pepsi Beverages Company, signed a five-year lease at One Pepsi Way in Somers that keeps the company”™s headquarters and about 900 jobs in Westchester through 2015. The bottler expanded its space there by 50 percent and now fully occupies the nine-story, 540,000-square-foot building.
In a message to PepsiCo employees, CEO Indra Nooyi said the $243 million investment will “create a modern headquarters for generations to come” that will foster innovation and help the company keep and attract top talent.
The Purchase campus “truly is a special place where we”™ve enjoyed incredible successes and formed relationships that will last us a lifetime. It is this deep and personal foundation that allows us to launch an exciting new future here,” she said.
Westchester County Executive Robert P. Astorino in a statement called the company”™s decision “a sign of faith in the county”™s future, a shot in the arm to the local economy and the extension of a 50-year relationship that”™s been a model of civic-corporate partnerships.”
IDA officials thanked PepsiCo with an early-morning toast. Cans of Pepsi were raised in place of flutes of champagne.
Editor’s note: Updated Nov. 2.
