South Philly wholesalers to review move

South Philly produce wholesalers meet this week to review a move from the crowded Food Distribution Center to a proposed $200 million Philadelphia Regional Produce Market, on a site developer Brian O'Neill controls at 6700 Essington Ave. near Philadelphia International Airport.

"That's their plan. We don't know when we're going to break ground," said James Storey, head of Quaker City Produce Co. and a leader of the wholesalers. There's no deal yet, said John Estey, chairman of the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority, which would become the market's landlord.

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.

Healthy's office in a 220-year-old home cultivates a "Zen tea garden meets yoga studio" look that Schnell says recalls his "growing up in an organic vegetarian hippie household" in Boston. But it's no co-op: Lead investor Inventages is backed by global food giant Nestlé S.A.

Summing upward:

Goldenberg Rosenthall L.L.P., a Jenkintown accounting firm that does the books for builders, car dealers and nonprofit groups, has merged its 21 partners, 100 support staff, and $25 million in annual billings with Amper, Politziner & Mattia P.C., of Edison, N.J., which is about 31/2 times larger.

"We needed more depth in international tax, international audit, and state and local tax," said Goldenberg managing partner Jay L. Weinstein, who will now head Amper's Jenkintown office. "We now have the capabilities you need to compete at this level."

Building for sale:

$78 million buys you eight floors, 224,000 square feet, and almost no vacancy at Five Tower Bridge in West Conshohocken.

The tower counts Keystone Foods L.L.C. (now paying $32.50/sq. ft., leased till 2016), Nationwide ($33/2013), and pharma companies BTG International Inc. and Eli Lilly & Co. among its tenants, according to an ad placed in Real Estate Alert last week by CB Richard Ellis Group Inc. broker Robert J. Fahey. Five Tower was opened in 2001 by Oliver Tyrone Pulver Corp. and a client of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co.'s Cornerstone Real Estate Advisors. Fahey did not return calls.

Besides its brokerage, CBRE is No. 15 on Private Equity Real Estate magazine's new list of big U.S. private-equity property investors. The Blackstone Group L.P., with $20 billion in assets, tops the list. Philadelphia's Lubert-Adler is the lone local entry.