Toddy cold-brew coffee will occupy all 84,000 square feet of Centerra Industrial Two

Written by Craig Young, Reporter-Herald

Developer McWhinney announced Monday that it would break ground on a 123,000-square-foot industrial building in east Loveland and that it had leased a brand-new building in the same development.

The company said in a press release that it would start moving dirt this month on Centerra Industrial Four, which will be the third large warehouse-industrial building for McWhinney at the site off East 37th Street.

In 2016, McWhinney completed Centerra Industrial One at 5195 E. 37th St., a speculative project for which it had no tenant yet. In October, the company announced that it had signed cold-brew coffee company Toddy LLC to occupy half of the 84,000-square-foot building and was starting on a second light-industrial structure.

The next month, the Safelite auto glass company said it had leased the other half of Industrial One.

Toddy’s growth
In a separate email Monday, McWhinney said Toddy had leased the entirety of the second building next door at 5135 E. 37th St. Centerra Industrial Two, a twin to Industrial One, was completed at the end of last year.

“We were here about three weeks before we realized we didn’t have enough space,” Toddy President Julia Leach said Monday in an interview at the company’s 42,000-square-foot headquarters.

Toddy, founded in 1964, moved to Fort Collins in February 2010. Before its relocation to Loveland last year, it occupied four buildings in Fort Collins and Loveland and was looking forward to the benefits of consolidating to one location.

But Leach said Toddy still is using the Loveland site that it owned before leasing in Centerra.

Toddy makes equipment to cold-brew coffee. The simple system produces a coffee concentrate from which much of the acid has been removed and which can be drunk hot or cold. The system also can be used for tea.

“It’s a different way to drink coffee, and it’s become a lot more popular in recent years,” Leach said. She and her husband, vice president Andy Leach, are owners of the company.

On Monday, the Leaches displayed three different classes of Toddy brew systems -the one-gallon plastic and glass home brewer, the five-gallon plastic commercial model and the recently patented stainless-steel pro model that can make 20 gallons at a time.

“Most of our volume is for cafe use and larger,” Julia Leach said.

Tripling the size of the company’s presence in Centerra will allow room for its current needs and future growth, she said.

The company is enjoying growth in U.S. and international markets, she said, but also is seeing stepped-up competition, including the entry into the market of huge players such as Kraft Foods and Coca-Cola.
“It’s now a very sought-after segment,” she said.

Toddy’s employment levels are somewhat seasonal, she said, and she expects to have about 45 workers at the peak this year.

“Our goal is to grow and bring great jobs to the community,” she said. “This is a great location for us. We want to invest in our community where we are.”

Centerra Industrial Four
The larger Centerra Industrial Four building will be McWhinney’s largest industrial space in Loveland so far, according to the press release. The company expects construction of the core and shell to be completed by January 2019.

The building will incorporate the features that were included in the first two structures, including 24-foot clear ceiling heights, dock­high loading and “early suppression fast response” fire sprinkler systems.

The release said McWhinney is ”focused on increasing industrial, warehouse and distribution facilities in Northern Colorado, where a growing number of technology and industrial-focused companies are looking to locate and/or expand.”

In an email Monday afternoon, Ashley Stiles, McWhinney’s vice president for development in Northern Colorado, said her company has plans to eventually erect seven buildings in the industrial park, “but we have several hundred acres of additional industrial opportunity in Centerra.”