SUGAR LAND, Texas – (Realty News Report) – Minute Maid, a Coca-Cola brand, is moving its Houston-area operations to Atlanta, according to a report from CoStar News’ Atlanta bureau.
Minute Maid has maintained offices in the Houston region since 1967, but the company is now relocating its operations to Atlanta, where Coca-Cola is headquartered.
The company has retained JLL to sublease its Houston office space: 41,114 square feet in the 2150 Town Square Place building within the Sugar Land Town Square development. That mixed-use Town Square community, developed by Planned Community Developers, sits near the Southwest Freeway and Highway 6 and includes Sugar Land’s city hall.
In the mid-1960s Coca-Cola decided to base Minute Maid operations in Houston. Roughly four decades later, Minute Maid reached an agreement with Sugar Land’s economic development organization that provided cash incentives paid by the city over 10 years; the deal also called for Minute Maid to occupy approximately 100,000 square feet of office space.
“The relocation mutually benefited both entities, bringing with it at least 275 jobs and $10.8 million in capital investments,” Sugar Land’s economic development office said in an earlier case study. At the time, the Coca-Cola Corporation extended its lease for another ten years without additional incentives from the city.
The lease for the office space now being offered for sublease runs through the end of 2029.
Minute Maid’s relocation is not expected to affect its sponsorship of the Houston Astros’ downtown ballpark, which has been known as Minute Maid Park since 2002. The ballpark is noted for a decorative steam locomotive above the left-field wall that pulls an open cargo car loaded with oversized, stylized oranges as a nod to the juice brand.
The move to Atlanta follows broader corporate changes at Coca-Cola, which has reduced staff and reorganized its real estate and facilities operations in recent years. The company also discontinued Tab, its first diet soda.
March 8, 2021 – Realty News Report. Copyright 2021.
Caption: Minute Maid occupied space in the eight-story 2150 Town Square Place in Sugar Land. Photo by Ralph Bivins, Realty News Report (2021).
File: Minute Maid Moving HQ to Atlanta From Texas