Swire Coca-Cola Colorado Springs distribution center

An architect's rendering of Swire Coca-Cola USA's new Colorado Springs distribution center under construction near the Colorado Springs Airport.

The Coca-Cola bottler for Colorado and 12 other Western states is nearly tripling the size of its Colorado Springs distribution center just west of the Colorado Springs Airport.

Swire Coca-Cola USA is spending $21.7 million on a 145,000-square-foot building at 1935 Cygnet Heights, southwest of Fountain Boulevard and Aviation Way, that will open in early 2022, the Utah-based company announced last month. The new facility is about a mile south of Swire's current 55,980-square-foot center at 1075 Vapor Trail, southwest of Aviation Way and Newport Road.

"Swire Coca-Cola is committed to being the best employer, the best business partner and the best corporate citizen wherever we do business," Craig Hadler, vice president of Swire's Rocky Mountain Division, said in a news release. "Building a new, larger sales center in Colorado Springs supports this mission by giving our people much needed office and meeting space, double the warehouse space for the approximately 800 products we provide to local businesses, all while being carefully designed to minimize the new building's impact on the environment."

Swire's new center has been in the planning stages since 2015 and is built with expansion in mind — it could support a business more than twice the current size of Swire's Colorado Springs operation, which employs 140, Hadler said. Colorado Springs-based Collarelli Construction is general contractor for the project. The 11.7-acre site can accommodate a future addition that would nearly double the size of the building, Hadler said.

Swire's new building is designed with large glass walls to maximize natural heat and light, and will be built to second-highest level under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design system. The center will be powered by a 900-kilowatt rooftop solar array that will produce more electricity than the building uses. Swire also plans to collect one bottle or can for each one sold and raise the recycled content of its packaging to 50% by 2030 and make the packaging 100% recyclable by 2025.

The company, which distributes Coca-Cola products to retailers, restaurants, bars and event venues, has spent $80 million building new facilities since 2014 in Denver, Johnstown and Pueblo since acquiring distribution rights for the Front Range that year.  Swire Coca-Cola is owned by Hong Kong-based conglomerate Swire Pacific Ltd., which is the largest shareholder of Cathay Pacific Airways and also owns several major shopping malls and several other businesses.

Contact Wayne Heilman 636-0234

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