PepsiCo Beverages North America announced Wednesday that it finalized a deal to buy 152 acres of land south of Denver International Airport, where it will build a 1.2 million-square-foot manufacturing facility.

Denver agreed to give PepsiCo $1 million from its Business Incentive Fund to build the plant, which will be the soda company’s largest manufacturing facility in the United States, according to a news release.

The facility at 72nd Avenue and Argonne Street in the High Point area will replace the company’s plant in the city’s River North neighborhood.

That building has been in operation since the 1950s and company officials said they had outgrown their RiNo plant. The 250 employees who work at the RiNo facility will move to the new plant.

PepsiCo bought the the land for its new plant from Westside Investment Partners $49.2 million, a Westside official confirmed. 

Colorado beat out four other states for the facility in part because of PepsiCo’s “long history in the state through sustainable business,” according to the release. PepsiCo has 1,200 employees in Colorado and plans to add about 250 positions with the new development.

“We’re thrilled to call Denver, a city that shares so many of our values, home to PepsiCo’s most sustainable U.S. plant location,” Johannes Evenblij, west division president of PepsiCo Beverages North America, said in the release. “With the High Point facility serving (as) a model for the future of PBNA’s supply chain, we’re eager to continue deepening our dedication to Colorado through positive impacts such as new job opportunities and more sustainable business solutions.”

Earlier this year, Denver City Council approved a $1 million Business Incentive Fund contract with Bottling Group LLC, an operating subsidiary of PepsiCo, for the $400 million plant. Pepsi will receive $1 million from the city.

The first $500,000 payment will come once the plant receives a certificate of occupancy. The rest of the money will come once Pepsi has shown it created the jobs it promised, retained the jobs from the existing plant and provided workforce training and upskilling programs, said Denver’s Chief Business Development Officer Deborah Cameron.

City officials estimated the development could bring $6 million in additional revenue to the city’s general fund over a five-year period and $11 million over a 10-year period.

Cameron said the city gave a similar deal to VF Corp. to relocate its headquarters to Denver from North Carolina in 2018. The company moved into its headquarters at 1551 Wewatta St. in 2020. 

The city also redrew the boundaries for an enterprise zone in the area so the new Pepsi development could be included. Businesses that develop in an enterprise zone “are eligible for state income tax credits and sales and use tax exemptions for specific business investments,” according to Colorado’s Office of Economic Development and International Trade, which helped with negotiations.

“PepsiCo has been committed to our community for nearly 75 years, and we’re proud that they have chosen to deepen their roots here and grow that commitment,” Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock said in the release. “Not only will their new facility create more quality jobs in our city, it significantly boosts their commitment to sustainability and supports my administration’s climate action efforts. We’ve been working hand-in-hand with the PepsiCo team on this project and look forward to taking it across the finish line.”

PepsiCo officials pledged to work with Denver’s Economic Development and Opportunity on “outreach and hiring activities to connect Denver area residents with these employment opportunities.”

“The announcement today represents two years of work put in to win this project for Denver — it’s an amazing day,” said Cameron. “We get an opportunity to retain mid-skill, high-quality manufacturing jobs in an urban environment. We’ve got a lot more work to do.”

PepsiCo said the new facility will be three times larger than its Brighton Boulevard plant.

Asked Wednesday how the plant would be its “most sustainable domestic outpost” as stated in the release, a spokesperson said construction would include “installing technology capable of achieving higher rPET incorporation goals to help us reduce virgin plastic use by 50%, a rooftop solar photovoltaic system that’ll drive renewable energy, and state-of-the-art utility monitoring systems to allow efficient water management throughout the facility.”

Construction is expected to start soon, with company officials eyeing a 2023 opening.