The former Sunny Delight bottling plant in Littleton has sold for $4.6 million to a joint venture of New Mill Capital Holdings of New York, Gordon Brothers Group of Boston and Odyssey Real Estate Capital of Las Vegas.
That purchase price includes the 332,000-square-foot facility, but does not include a substantial amount bottling equipment that’s inside the facility, said Gregory Schain, principal with New Mill.
The bottling plant had been in active use since 1931 and was once one of the largest employers in the small town northeast of Boston. But the facility has been vacant since Sunny Delight moved those bottling operations to Texas last November, Schain said.
The plant has formerly been used to bottle Sunny Delight, Veryfine juices, Arizona iced teas and Smartwater, and the new owners would like to bring in another bottling operation at the plant.
“The highest and best use would be for another bottler to come in there,” Schain said. “The equipment’s all in place. All the permits are active. There’s a wastewater treatment plant (on the site) which has a very, very high capacity. Anyone who has a high-throughput operation, this plant would be perfect for.”
The bottling plant is spread across four buildings located near Interstate 495: three buildings at 3, 20 and 29 Harvard Road and one building on King Street.
New Mill, Gordon Brothers and Odyssey have hired real estate brokerage CBRE, which has a national food facilities group, to lead the marketing of the property. If the brokerage does not find a bottling user, the property could be converted to an industrial property or warehouse, Schain said.
Sunny Delight Beverages Co. was formed in 2004 when J.W. Childs Associates, a Waltham-based private equity firm, acquiring the SunnyD brand from Cincinnati-based The Procter & Gamble Co. J.W. Childs on Jan. 14 sold Sunny Delight Beverages Co. to Brynwood Partners VII L.P., a fund of Greenwich, Connecticut-based private equity firm Brynwood Partners.
*Original article can be found at Boston Business Journal