Sterling developer has ‘big plans’ for former Pepsi bottling site

STERLING – A local developer bought the Stewart Beverage Corp. property at 1307 W. Fourth St. for $450,000.

Scott Hibbard of Sterling, owner of Hibbard Builders Inc., has “big plans” for the 1.89-acre site, which he plans to reveal shortly after more design work and other details are in place, he said in a recent phone interview.

While reluctant to reveal details, Hibbard obviously is excited about his plans, which he thinks folks will find “surprising.”

In addition to new construction and commercial real estate development, Hibbard has renovated or remodeled several buildings, among them the historic Moses M. Royer home at 401 E. Second St., and several downtown Sterling businesses, including the Mattox Insurance Agency, UOI, BB Kids and Merle Norman.

His office at 601 W. Third St. also is in a historic brick Italianate renovated by him and his business partner, Corey Gabler.

Stewart Beverage, a single-site business, was established in 1937; among other things, Pepsi-Cola was bottled there for decades. The fenced-in site has two buildings, one about 11,200 square feet and the other about 26,200 square feet.

Rock Island-based beverage bottling company A.D. Huesing Corp. bought the building in May 2018 for $500,000.

Huesing was sold that November to Madison, Wisconsin-based WP Beverages, which sold the site to Hibbard.