San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Bread, pastry maker joins the mix at Brooks
Another food manufacturing facility is coming to the Brooks master planned community on the Southeast Side.
Bakerly, a maker of French bread and pastries, plans to open a $35 million production center at the 1,308-acre former Air Force base — the brand’s second U.S. facility.
“The opportunity to develop new partnerships, grow our operations, and recruit from a burgeoning workforce are some of the many reasons we’re excited about our decision,” CEO Julien Caron said in a statement.
Bakerly is leasing about 25.6 acres along Research Plaza. The first phase of its facility would include 137,350 square feet of production space and administration offices, according to a filing with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.
The production center will employ about 300 people, Brooks President and CEO Leo Gomez recently told the city’s Economic and Workforce Development Committee. Construction is expected to be completed in April 2023.
Bakerly is part of Norac Group, a food production and distribution company with subsidiaries in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Brazil and Spain.
It is “the largest French producer of sandwiches and filled pancakes, the first viennoiserie distributor in Germany and one of the top three companies for pastries, bread and cakes in France,” according to its website.
Its other Bakerly production facility is in Pennsylvania.
“Brooks is now proudly the home to five international companies. With the addition of Bakerly, we welcome our second French-based company alongside Cuisine Solutions,” Gomez said in a statement. “With hundreds more jobs being added to our dynamic campus, Bakerly is helping impact our region’s economy.”
Brooks AFB was decommissioned in 2011 and now houses a mix of more than 40 businesses, 1,300 rental units, restaurants, schools, medical facilities, stores and hotels.
More than 2,300 people live on the campus, and more than 3,200 people work there.
Other companies
Cuisine Solutions, which produces gourmet entrees, sauces and other food items, opened a $200 million center at Brooks last spring.
Nissei Plastic Machinery America Inc., which produces injection molding machines, and Okin Process, which provides customer support, billing and other services, also have facilities at Brooks.
Terramark Urban Homes is in the process of building the first single-family for-sale housing at Brooks. Its development’s first phase will include about 63 units, and negotiations are underway for a second phase with about 90 units, Gomez told the city committee.
The land at Brooks is exempt from property taxes and has a tax increment reinvestment zone, which reimburses developers for public improvements from property tax revenue.
Brooks is also designated as a federal opportunity zone, which provides tax breaks on capital gains to investors who plug their money into long-term investments in the area.
Opportunity zones were established by then-President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax bill to spur investment in economically disadvantaged areas. But research by the Urban Institute has shown that many of the 24 zones in the San Antonio area were attracting interest without the giveaways, including Brooks.
Gomez has said the designation helped draw companies to Brooks. Texas’ first opportunity zone project opened there last year: a $16 million climate-controlled self-storage facility with flexible office space for small businesses.
Brooks is expected to grow as employers add more jobs and more housing is built in the next few years. It projects more than 3,300 residents and 5,000 jobs by 2025, according to Gomez’s committee presentation.
Brooks is seeking $15 million from the city’s 2022 bond package and $22 million from a federal grant program to reconstruct Sidney Brooks, a major east-to-west corridor at the campus.