Coke to boost BR plant

• By GARY PERILLOUX
• Advocate business writer
• Published: May 10, 2008 - Page: 1D - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Spurning his self-described status as Louisiana’s most boring governor, Bobby Jindal took a walk on the wild side Friday: He swilled Diet Coke for breakfast.

A small price to pay, Jindal would joke later at a Capitol news conference, when you’ve capped an $85 million beverage plant investment in Baton Rouge by adding a $93 million expansion before the original plant could fill its first bottle of Coca-Cola.

Friday’s revelation that Coca-Cola would add Powerade and Vitamin Water production lines to an original lineup of 149 carbonated and water beverages put a spring in the governor’s step. State officials promised Coca-Cola Bottling Co. United Inc., Coca-Cola’s regional bottling franchisee, a $1.4 million state grant to help drill a pair of water wells to make the expansion possible.

Coca-Cola Bottling said it would hire 113 new people in the next four years, at annual pay averaging $45,000, as part of the $93 million expansion.

The 270,000-square-foot expansion comes on top of the 500,000-square-foot building under construction east of Metro Airport on Plank Road. General contractor Forcum Lannom of Dyersburg, Tenn., began work on the initial $85 million facility in April.

Employees will begin leaving Coca-Cola’s Airline Highway bottling facility late this year and vacate that property in early 2009.

“We’ve said all along economic development is certainly bringing new companies to Louisiana, but it’s also encouraging companies to expand,” Jindal said. “(This is) a great economic development announcement for Louisiana, a great economic development announcement for Baton Rouge.”

To win the original Coca-Cola project last year, Baton Rouge vied with Hattiesburg, Miss., and beat an alternative offer to consolidate bottling there for the company’s Gulf South region.

Stephen Moret, Louisiana’s economic development secretary, said the expansion announced Friday would create 370 permanent indirect jobs beyond Coca-Cola’s 113 positions.

In the first decade, the expansion would generate $13.2 million in new state tax revenue and $9.5 million in new city-parish tax revenue for “an exceptional return on investment on those new water wells,” Moret said.

About a month ago, Baton Rouge Water Co. completed a mile extension of its water lines and upgraded water mains to keep water pressure at Coca-Cola’s new site and in the area in the mid-60s (pounds per square inch), said Hays Owen, chief administrative officer for the water company.

With the enhancements, neither water pressure nor water quality will suffer, he said. But bringing on the additional drink lines required tapping ground water for a larger water supply, Coca-Cola officials said.

Beverage lines will tap both municipal and ground water, but all water going into drinks at the facility — including its Dasani bottled water brand — are filtered extensively, said Melanie Clark, the company’s marketing vice president.