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Forsyth to consider incentives to lure Pepsi expansion

Thursday, September 2, 2010
(Updated 4:49 pm)

WINSTON-SALEM (MCT) — The Forsyth County Board of Commissioners will offer $64,000 to $150,000 in economic incentives to Pepsi Beverages for expanding its operations here and adding 195 jobs.

The commissioners said in a legal notice in today's Winston-Salem Journal that it would hold a public hearing on the request at 6 p.m. Sept. 13. The incentives would be paid over five years.

Pepsi Beverages' potential expansion plans for its local customer-service call center was first reported on Aug. 14.

The new jobs would not be connected to Pepsi Bottling Ventures, which distributes Pepsi products in the Triad. Pepsi Beverages and the legacy Pepsi Bottling Group have been operating locally since 1993.

The legal notice provided more details on Pepsi Beverages' plans and the local incentive offers.

The board said Pepsi Beverages plans to spend at $7 million over five years on renovating its operations at 1110 Reynolds Blvd.

The building encompasses more than 520,000 square feet and is owned by Wake Forest University. Other tenants at the building, including BB&T Corp., would move to other office spaces around the city. Aon Corp., a risk-management and insurance company, also has offices there.

The city would provide about the same amount in incentives. The county said its incentives would come from its general fund, and the city's incentives would come from its economic-development funds.

The combined local offer would be matched by a $400,000 grant from the One North Carolina Fund, which the governor can provide to businesses expanding or opening new operations in the state.

The 195 new jobs would be created over five years. They would have an average wage of $36,500 a year, plus benefits.

''We are considering plans to further expand our customer-service operations in Winston- Salem," Jeff Dahncke, a spokesman for PepsiCo., said on Aug. 13. "We look at our customer-service operations regularly to assess their efficiencies and effectiveness."

Dahncke said  the company has added 100 jobs in Winston-Salem this year.

Pepsi Beverages employs about 870 people in Winston-Salem. The new jobs would augment existing customer-service jobs, which cater to vendors and retailers, not consumers.

Local officials, though, say that the expansion in Winston-Salem is far from a done deal. Winston- Salem, they say, is in competition with Fargo, N.D.; Plano, Texas; and St. Louis for the jobs.

Local officials said they are worried that if the company chooses to expand elsewhere, it could mean jobs lost here.

PepsiCo operates call centers in Fargo, which served as a Pepsi Americas center, and Plano, where Pepsi mostly runs former Frito Lay operations

Pepsi Beverages is a subsidiary of PepsiCo Inc. It had operated as Pepsi Bottling Group Inc. until it was bought, along with Pepsi Americas Inc., by PepsiCo in February.

Pepsi is based in Purchase, N.Y., and also has major hubs in Chicago and Plano.

But Pepsi has ties to Winston- Salem, too. Steve Reinemund, the former chief executive and chairman of PepsiCo Inc., is dean of the Wake Forest University Schools of Business.

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