Quaker Foods to Open Northeast Sales Office in Tarrytown

TARRYTOWN-Quaker Foods & Beverages has signed a lease for 23,495 sf of office space at 660 White Plains Rd. here in a move that will bring as many as 100 workers to the complex by early 2002. The deal was reported by Reckson Realty Associates, the owner of the 265,000-sf office property located in the Route 119 corridor.

Quaker Foods & Beverages plans to open a Northeast Sales Office (Central Business Center) at its new Tarrytown location. The company expects to take occupancy in early 2002 and plans to have between 80 and 100 employees working out of the facility, according to Susan Schreiber, manger of public relations for Quaker Foods & Beverages, which is a subsidiary of PepsiCo of Purchase. The company is headquartered in Chicago.

She adds that the Northeast Sales Office will house Quaker Foods as well as Tropicana personnel. Quaker produces and distributes such products as Tropicana, Gatorade, Quaker Oats, Quaker rice cakes, Rice-A-Roni and Aunt Jemima syrups and mixes. Schreiber notes that the Tarrytown location will serve as an additional sales office for the company. Some personnel will be relocated to the Tarrytown office from other Northeast sales locations, Schreiber says. The company will occupy about half of the second floor of the 660 White Plains Rd. building, Reckson officials relate.

Carl Austin, a principal of Austin Corporate Properties Inc., represented Quaker Foods & Beverages in the lease transaction. Austin says that Quaker Foods & Beverages had been in the market for space for about six months. The company had reviewed other office locations in Westchester County as well as Fairfield County, CT and New Jersey before deciding on the 660 White Plains Rd. property, part of Reckson’s six-building, 875,000-sf Tarrytown Corporate Center complex.

Austin comments, “I think this is a significant transaction for Westchester County because it is such a solid company. I think it is a tremendous show of confidence in the Westchester office market.”

Salvatore Campofranco, managing director of Reckson’s Westchester division, says, “We are pleased to have such a prestigious and well-known company as Quaker Foods & Beverages at 660 White Plains Rd. The building offers Quaker, along with its other tenants, a business environment that complements the prestige of its tenancy and offers the technology and quality services these leading companies require.”

Reckson Realty Associates, a REIT headquartered in Melville, NY, has a Westchester office portfolio of 25 buildings containing 3.3 million sf of space.