$80M Campbell Soup Plant Coming to Seaway Biz Center

EVERETT, WA-Campbell Soup Co. will relocate its StockPot premium refrigerated soup operation here from Woodinville. The Camden, NJ-based soup maker is having a new $80-million 220,000-sf facility constructed within Panattoni Development Co.’s Seaway Business Center. Campbell Soup expects to be up and running in the new facility next summer. StockPot’s products are sold across the U.S. as part of Campbell’s Away From Home division and have achieved double-digit growth over the past four years. The new manufacturing facility will be more than double the size of the Woodinville operation, enabling the company to increase StockPot production capacity by 50%. In addition, the 18-acre property it acquired at Seaway is three times its Woodinville property, which will allow for future expansion. Panattoni will construct the shell of the manufacturing facility and another contractor will be tapped to build out the facility.Campbell Soup needed to relocate to allow for the development of the Brightwater Treatment Plant north of Woodinville in Snohomish County. In early April, officials of King County, agreed to provide Campbell Soup a $23.45-million relocation fee intended to keep StockPot’s operations–its 400 jobs and $21 million in annual company purchases–within King, Snohomish or Pierce County. By selecting Everett, StockPot chose Snohomish County.Campbell acquired StockPot Inc. in 1998. At the time, StockPot was headquartered in Redmond. A source at Campbell Soup tells GlobeSt.com the operation was relocated to Woodinville in 1999. At the time, it was a major expansion of the operation. Now, six years later, the operation is again undergoing a major expansion.The Seaway Business Center is located southwest of Downtown Everett at the intersection of Merrill Creek Parkway and Hardeson Road. It is about 15 minutes away from StockPot’s Woodinville operation. StockPot’s facility will sit on 18 acres, which will allow for future expansion. The Campbell Soup source says the company considered numerous locations but, given its existing location, Panattoni’s south Everett location provided “the best combination of accessibility” for both its employees—60% of which live in Snohomish County–and its trucks, which will be close to the region’s major arteries.Tom Wilson and Gary Bullington of Cushman & Wakefield represented Panattoni; they also have the ongoing marketing assignment for the park’s overall development. Steve Henderson of Broderick Group represented StockPot.Wilson tells GlobeSt.com that Seaway was planned as a seven-building 615,000-sf industrial park, with three on the north side of Industry Street and four on the south side. StockPot acquired all three parcles on the north side of Industry. With two of the four parcels on the south side having already been developed [with a 65,000-sf building and a 46,500-sf building], leased and sold to investors for around $115 per sf, only two parcels remain to be developed. One of those two remaining parcels will be developed with a 95,000-sf building and the other will be developed with a 48,000-sf building. There has been discussion about moving forward and develop them concurrently with StockPot’s facility to gain some construction efficiencies, but no decision has been made about that as yet, says Wilson.