Pepsi moving 150 jobs to Fairborn, closing Dayton, Springfield sites

Pepsi will open a new Fairborn warehouse that will bring 150 jobs to the Greene County suburb and will mean the consolidation of existing operations in Dayton and Springfield.

PepsiCo said the company’s new facility in Fairborn, a 150,000 square foot operation being built on Spangler Road near Ohio 444 and Interstate 675, “will enable us to more efficiently and effectively serve our customers and consumers in the surrounding counties.”

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Pepsi has a warehouse at 526 Milburn Ave., in Dayton — where a large sign proclaims it “Dayton’s #1 Soft Drink” — and one at 233 Dayton Ave. in Springfield.

“Our intention is to ensure all employees from our existing operations in Dayton and Springfield will be offered roles at the new facility or in nearby locations, and we remain committed to supporting all of our employees during this time of transition,” the statement from PepsiCo said.

Leaders in Fairborn said they were excited about the new project.

“We were excited for this project to come to us,” Rob Anderson, Fairborn city manager, said. “We’ve had available land in Fairborn for a long time.”

Fairborn provided a property tax abatement for the project and helped extend a gas line to the property. Anderson said Fairborn City Schools have been on board with the project from the beginning.

“We were excited for this project to come to us,” Rob Anderson, Fairborn city manager, said. “We’ve had available land in Fairborn for a long time.”

Fairborn provided a property tax abatement for the project and helped extend a gas line to the property. Anderson said Fairborn City Schools have been on board with the project from the beginning.

Fairborn’s landing of Pepsi is a welcome addition for the Greene County suburb, but a move would be another hard loss to Old North Dayton, which has seen several major employers leave the area as a handful of small businesses endure.

Falb’s Restaurant — a Dayton fixture at the corner of Chapel and Kieser streets since 1920 — has seen a slowing of business from the across-the-street Pepsi warehouse in recent years as employees no longer rely on the establishment for check cashing, said family employee Dwayne Falb.

Falb, who still serves up hamburgers and cabbage rolls to a handful of Pepsi employees and retirees at lunch hour, said those frequent customers told him the company’s operations will consolidate in Fairborn.

“It’s disappointing to see another big business move out of the area,” Falb said, noting the restaurant still draws a decent crowd from downtown. “We’ll go as long as we can, we’re coming up on our 100th anniversary here.”

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Other employers have left Old North Dayton in recent years.

Composite Advantage remains within Dayton city limits, but the manufacturer moved to the city’s west side, which gave it room to add up to 90 more people over the next five years in addition to its 95 employees.

Progressive Printers, a longtime fixture next to Dayton Children’s Hospital, is taking its 45 full-time employees and roughly 20 part-time employees to Vandalia.

Heidelberg Distributing Company moved to the former Cooper Tire building in Moraine from their former home on Leo Street in north Dayton in 2013. The beer, wine and spirits distributor had been located in north Dayton since 1965.

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