Reed’s Dairy building destroyed in fire earlier this year is being demolished
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IDAHO FALLS – Months after the Reed’s Dairy production building was destroyed in a fire, a demolition crew was on site Thursday morning to begin the process of tearing it down.
Owner Alan Reed tells EastIdahoNews.com the demolition is expected to take four or five days to complete.
Watching the 10,000-square-foot building be demolished is an emotional experience for him.
“There’s a lot of memories in there,” Reed says.
But it’s the overwhelming show of support from the community to him and his business over the last several months that brings tears to his eyes.
“The people here in Idaho Falls are amazing,” Reed says, choking up. “They’ve been so kind to us and it’s really humbling to me, the great support we’ve got from the community. It’s so touching.”
Despite the tragic loss, Reed says he’s tired of looking at the empty building and will be glad to “have the mess cleaned up.”
Once demolition is complete, Reed is planning to put blacktop over the site and turn it into a parking lot so customers have more space.
Reed and his team have since rented a warehouse near the Flying J gas station on the south side of town where they’re temporarily making cheese and ice cream until a new building can be built.
“We were scattered out in half a dozen places after the fire and so it’s nice to have one spot we can work out of,” Reed explains. “We’ve got a company outside of Chicago that’s making the mix for us. We haul it here and make ice cream out of it.”
Other companies are helping with the cheese curds and milk bottling process as well.
The plan is to build a new 25,000-square-foot production building in a field on the north side of the Broadway location.
He’s waiting on final approval from the city to begin construction. He anticipates it taking about two years to complete.
RELATED | Reed’s Dairy production building a total loss following fire
Though it’s been four months since the building erupted in flames, Reed still doesn’t have any definite answers about what caused it. One investigator told him it could’ve been an electric heater in one of the rooms.
“I’m not sure that we really know. It must’ve been something electrical that shorted out,” he says. “At this point, we just gotta move forward.”
WATCH SOME OF THE DEMOLITION IN THE VIDEO ABOVE.