AriZona Iced Tea plans ‘huge’ office technology purchase

The parent company of AriZona Iced Tea plans a major purchase of office technology for its headquarters in Woodbury, officials said.

The nation’s leading supplier of ready-to-drink tea is “making a huge investment in new technology” for the office that it moved into less than 10 years ago, said Thomas Stringer, the company’s site selection consultant.

He also said AriZona Beverages USA LLC would add an unspecified number of workers to its headquarters’ payroll, which totals more than 200.

U.S. sales of AriZona Iced Tea were $650 million for the year ended April 16, according to industry estimates provided by the data company Statista, making it the most popular tea sold in bottles and cans.

Improvements to the office at 60 Crossways Park Dr. will come after the owner of AriZona Beverages, Don Vultaggio, buys the half of the 100,000-square-foot building that he doesn’t already own.

He is buying out developer John Cacoulidis of Grand Metro Builders Inc. in Jericho for an undisclosed amount.

Cacoulidis built the beverage company’s headquarters in the 2000s, which cost about $36 million.

A spokesman for Grand Metro didn’t respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. A spokeswoman for AriZona Beverages referred questions to Stringer.

Last week, the Nassau County Industrial Development Agency gave permission for the building sale. In 2007, the agency provided nearly $4 million in tax breaks over 10 years to support construction of the building, which kept AriZona Beverages from moving to Pennsylvania or New Jersey.

Three years later, the county provided more tax breaks to support the company’s expansion.

Stringer said AriZona Beverages will seek further IDA aid.

IDA executive director Joseph J. Kearney said the company was an “important” employer “and we are happy they want to stay here and grow here.”

AriZona Beverages traces its roots to Brooklyn in 1971 when Vultaggio and John Ferolito began distributing beer from an old Volkswagen bus. They introduced AriZona Iced Tea in 1992 and moved their headquarters from Brooklyn to Lake Success in 1995. Two years ago, Vultaggio took control of the company after a lengthy legal battle with Ferolito.