According to a budget estimate prepared by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, the market depends on $107 million in Pennsylvania state funding, including $100 million in public-improvement funds and $7 million in infrastructure grants announced by Gov. Rendell last month.
The nation's taxpayers are chipping in $2 million in HUD "brownfields" site-rehab money, plus a $3 million loan that was originally earmarked for a proposed Wal-Mart and retail development.
O'Neill's lenders are down for $73 million, according to HUD. Equity investors would add $11 million, plus $3.5 million from insurers of the old industrial site, which had been shopped to Wal-Mart and other retailers. O'Neill was unavailable for comment last week.
Fighting Coke: Flush with cash, Healthy Beverage L.L.C. has grown beyond the old granola ghetto.
The Newtown firm has peddled Steaz-brand organic soft drinks since 2002. Last week, it raised $11 million from Swiss private-equity investor Inventages and from Steaz's distributor in Canada, Whitefish Group Holdings Ltd., to finance a marketing war on the giants that dominate world soft drinks.
"We had two options: Did we want to be a nice family-run beverage business that grows slowly over the next two decades? Or did we want to take organic soft drinks mainstream and give consumers a global alternative to Coke and Pepsi?" said cofounder Eric Schnell.
Healthy Beverages expects to sell $14 million of Steaz this year at Acme, Wegman's, Whole Foods and independent stores, up from $6 million last year. Steaz says it costs more than plastic-bottle soda, but less than Red Bull and other premium brands. Steaz is made at the Lion Brewery Inc., Wilkes-Barre, which changed its cleaners and pesticides to qualify for a USDA organic label, Schnell said.
