Company that cans White Claw, Monster Energy and others to open at former South Philly refinery site

A company with contracts to can popular beverages like White Claw, High Noon, Monster Energy and Celsius is the first tenant at the redeveloped Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery property.

The 1,300-acre industrial campus situated mostly in South Philly but also reaching into Southwest is now called the Bellwether District and is owned by the HRP Group. The new tenant, California-based canned beverage manufacturer DrinkPAK, will occupy a warehouses that HRP Group is building on site.

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DrinkPAK will invest $195 million in the new facility located near 26th Street and Penrose Avenue at the foot of the George C. Platt Bridge. The company is receiving a $2 million grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, and a press release from Gov. Josh Shapiro's office said the new DrinkPAK facility will create 174 jobs over the next three years.

The 1.4 million-square-foot cannery is expected to open in 2027.

"This project is a tremendous win for the Bellwether District, as well as the Commonwealth's manufacturing industry," DCED Secretary Rick Siger said.

DrinkPAK's Bellwether District location will produce, can, package and store beverages, and it will have the capacity to manufacture three billion cans per year. The company also has another facility in Fort Worth, Texas.

"One of our goals is to build a coast-to-coast production network," DrinkPAK spokesperson Holly Schroeder said Wednesday. "Many of our customers had desire for us to locate in the Northeast, and after an extensive search where we looked at multiple states, we really homed in on the Bellwether District. I think it's going to become a stellar industrial park in Philadelphia."

The South Philly site's proximity to Interstate 95 puts 47 million consumers within a four-hour drive. Shroeder said the facility will "undoubtedly" open doors to new partnerships with emerging beverage brands in the region.

"Our founders worked on the brand side of the beverage industry before founding DrinkPAK, so they have a soft spot in their heart for startup brands," Schroeder said. "We try to dedicate part of our capacity to those brands because we know consumer tastes change. We want to be responsive to what consumers are interested in."

Philadelphia Energy Solutions was once the largest oil refinery on the East Coast. It shut down in 2019 after a fire and an explosion. HRP Group bought the property out of bankruptcy for $222 million in 2020, planning a $4 billion redevelopment that will create a 750-acre industrial logistics hub and a 250-acre campus geared toward life sciences companies. The entire site accounts for about 2% of Philadelphia's landmass.

HRP Group has already built two warehouses at the Bellwether District that do not yet have tenants, and the third will be occupied by DrinkPAK.

Under the terms of the refinery's sale to HRP Group, the developer is responsible for cleaning up contamination at the site along with Sunoco, which operated the refinery before PES, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection said.

Months after the explosion, tests at the PES site found concentrations of the carcinogen benzene at levels nearly five times higher than the standard set by the EPA. The agency reached a record $4.2 million settlement last year with PES for violations of the Clean Air Act.

HRP Group, which has faced scrutiny from community groups over the site's redevelopment, signed a 10-year community benefits commitment last year with 16 neighborhood organizations. The company pledged to invest in local workforce development, minimize the site's carbon footprint and complete infrastructure upgrades.

To accommodate increased traffic from the DrinkPAK facility, HRP Group plans to widen the intersection of 26th Street and Penrose Avenue with two new lanes and a new entrance to the site at 26th and Hartranft Avenue.

HRP Group has not revealed tenants who will occupy the other two completed warehouses. Recently, there has been speculation that a data center or cogeneration plant could be part of discussions for the sites.

In the coming decade, HRP Group anticipates constructing more than a dozen warehouses and other buildings at the Bellwether District and projects the campus could create as many as 19,000 permanent jobs in Philadelphia.

"DrinkPAK choosing to build its flagship East Coast facility in Philadelphia at the Bellwether District, bringing high-quality manufacturing and construction jobs to our City in a very competitive process, is proof that our strategy is working," Mayor Cherelle Parker said in a statement. "Philadelphia is a clear destination of choice for business."