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Isle of Wight County’s Economic Development Department plans to assist Keurig Dr. Pepper with marketing its Windsor roasting plant slated for closure.

The beverage manufacturer, which produces the Dr. Pepper and Snapple brands and the single-serve K-cups used in Keurig coffee makers, announced in July that the 330,000-square-foot facility that’s operated in the county’s Shirley T. Holland Intermodal Park on the outskirts of Windsor since 2012 would close by the end of the year.

Keurig Dr. Pepper, in an emailed statement to The Smithfield Times, confirmed the company plans to sell the building once operations cease.

“There is a lot of interest in the building already,” said Isle of Wight Economic Development Director Kristi Sutphin.

Specifically, Isle of Wight Economic Development will assist Keurig with marketing the property to prospective buyers using their broker’s listing information when it becomes available and supplementing it with local and regional information, Sutphin said.

Sutphin said she also hopes to coordinate hiring events with a handful of employers who have reached out to her department about hiring the plant’s 379 employees. Fifty-three, she said, are Isle of Wight residents.

“Our regional and state economic development partners, the Hampton Roads Alliance and Virginia Economic Development Partnership, will provide assistance as well,” Sutphin said.

In July, Sutphin said her department would work with the Virginia Employment Commission’s Rapid Response Team, which provides aid to companies and their affected workers upon an announced layoff or plant closure.

She told Isle of Wight’s Economic Development Authority at its Aug. 13 meeting that her office had already received seven inquiries about the building, which she said sits on 64 acres and is designed to be expandable up to 800,000 square feet.

Keurig, according to Sutphin, is working with CBRE Group, an international real estate company, to sell the building, likely in the first quarter of 2025 at a price that’s yet to be determined. The county valued the plant and its surrounding land at $22.7 million in 2023 when reassessing property values for real estate tax purposes.

Isle of Wight Commissioner of the Revenue Gerald Gwaltney, in July, said Keurig paid just under $140,000 in real estate taxes in 2023 based on an assessed $19.6 million in land and property values, making it the sixth highest in the county. Keurig also paid just under $745,000 in 2023 machinery and tools taxes based on an assessed $38.1 million valuation of its assets, making it the third highest behind International Paper’s Franklin mill and Smithfield Foods.

The Keurig plant is also located within an “enterprise zone,” Sutphin said, which could result in a buyer receiving state and local tax incentives depending on the proposed use of the space.

Businesses that invest at least $100,000 to rehabilitate or expand an existing structure in an enterprise zone can qualify for a state grant of up to $100,000, or up to $200,000 if investing at least $5 million. Businesses can also qualify for a state job creation grant, which provides up to $500 per year per net new permanent, full-time position provided the company creates at least four new full-time jobs paying at least 175% of the federal minimum wage with health benefits. 

Companies that create jobs paying at least 200% of the federal minimum wage with health benefits can qualify for up to $800 per year per net new permanent, full-time position.

Isle of Wight offers its own local version of the job grant, which pays an additional $500 per job per year for up to 20 new full-time positions, provided the jobs pay at least 150% of the federal minimum wage. The county further offers to waive permit fees and fast-track the permitting process.

For companies pledging to invest at least $1 million in new machinery and tools, Isle of Wight also offers a 25% rebate on machinery and tools taxes.

Keurig, according to past reporting by the Times, received $7 million in local incentives when it opened, pledging in 2012 to invest at least $180 million and hire at least 800 full-time workers by the end of 2016 in exchange for a 25% discount on machinery and tools taxes through 2031 and a 70% discount on real estate taxes through 2021.

Four years later, Keurig had invested $144 million and created 550 jobs but fell 20% short of the goal, prompting Isle of Wight to cut its incentives by an equivalent 20%.  

Katie Gilroy, a Keurig spokeswoman, said in July that the timing of the Windsor plant’s closure aligns with a ramp-up of production at another plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, which “enables us to rebalance our production capacity geographically and advance our effort to operate efficiently.”