FAIRBORN — Pepsi Beverages Company is opening a new facility on Spangler Road near State Route 444 in the City of Fairborn.

A spokesperson from the PepsiCo parent company said the facility will open in spring 2018 to “enable us (the company) to more efficiently and effectively serve our customers and consumers in the surrounding communities.”

The company currently operates Pepsi facilities within the Cities of Dayton and Springfield. As the new facility opens, Fairborn City Manager Rob Anderson is anticipating 150 jobs to arrive in the area.

“Our intention is to ensure all employees from our existing operations in Dayton and Springfield will be offered roles at the new facility or in nearby locations, and we remain committed to supporting all of our employees during this time of transition,” the spokesperson said.

The number of positions currently filled at the existing Dayton and Springfield Pepsi plants could not be confirmed.

A local developer approached Fairborn approximately one year or so ago with criteria it was seeking in a new location for a venture known at that time as “Project SoHo.” It required 25 acres of land, according to Anderson. He added that the developer was considering a total of three sights within the Dayton region, but was unsure of the other two areas. The location in Fairborn was shovel-ready and provides easy access to Interstate-675 and close proximity to Interstate-70.

“If you look at it logistically, we have a pretty good location,” Anderson said. “Not to mention the fact that our council is pretty proactive, pro-business. They want to try to recruit companies like that here. It’s a testament to what we’ve tried to accomplish here with our business-friendly attitude.”

The city additionally offered PepsiCo, which also owns Tropicana, Gatorade, Frito Lay and Quaker, a 15-year property tax abatement incentive.

“We have a great working relationship with our schools with regard to incentives like that,” Anderson said. “… It is definitely a cooperative effort. The schools had to review and approve the request, and they did that. The school board was in favor of what we’re trying to do from a development standpoint. It’s a partnership with our schools.”

Upon the announcement of the incoming business, a property owner near the Pepsi facility-to-be approached officials expressing that they had an additional 75-100 acres of shovel-ready land on the market. Former city officials had envisioned an industrial park to go up at I-675 and I-70, but Anderson feels that the city would be more fiscally responsible by utilizing the land that is already shovel-ready near the incoming Pepsi facility before preparing for development at the land near I-675 and I-70.

While no other company’s are currently in the process of preparing to utilize the land at Spangler Road near State Route 444, “it could be just a phone call away,” Anderson said.

“The vision for that area (Spangler Road, State Route 444) is to try to build out the industrial property that we have and fill those lots before we take on anything else,” he said. “… It’s fiscally more responsible to work with existing sights that try to put money into a new industrial park.”

The city has been working in recent years to “make it easy to do business with and within the City of Fairborn,” he said. It has demolished more than 79 blighted residential and commercial structures since 2010 to prepare shovel-ready land, among completing other business-friendly items.

“We want to make sure that we do things timely, that we communicate properly and effectively with [business] applicants,” Anderson said. “When push comes to shove, what can we do to solve the problem if we can?”