Pure Prairie Farms continues work at former Charles City Simply Essentials plant, considers expansion

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Pure Prairie Farms Inc., the company that purchased the former Simply Essentials chicken processing plant in Charles City, continues to make progress toward reopening the facility by this summer, and already is considering expanding, city officials said.

At the City Council meeting this week during the city administrator’s report, some of the council members, the mayor and city administrator discussed a meeting that they and others from the city had with Pure Prairie Farms officials earlier in the day.

“Another good meeting today,” said City Administrator Steve Diers. “We got a better understanding of what they’re looking at, their timeline for getting started, which is still up in the air but looking to be early to mid summer.”

Mayor Dean Andrews said, “All in all it was a really good discussion. It sounds like they have a really good game plan for getting started. … I think they’ve done a lot of good homework. They brought up probably four, five, six different things as far as what they believe was part of Simply Essentials’ downfall and what they’re going to do to address those issues to make it better and optimal. They’ve really looked at things.”

Andrews said the company executives also emphasized that they want to be part of the community.

“One of the people who was here today was kind of their public relations person and she was really trying to make a good impact of how they can be a community citizen,” he said.

“They’re planning on having an open house or a town hall to invite people out to explain it in full. It sounds like there’s going to be some good-paying jobs there as well. And so we’re excited about the opportunity and I think it’s going to be a real benefit for us,” Andrews said.

Diers said one of the more interesting and pertinent parts of the discussion, as far as the city is concerned, is the company’s desire to expand into the Main Street area at the front of the plant.

“They’re going to be expanding on that facility to do what Simply Essentials wanted to do and needed to do — expand their onsite storage capacity and what they call their tray-packing assembly for getting stuff packed up,” Diers said.

“They want to build farther out toward the street and actually utilize that street for semis backing in there and getting access,” he said.

The city has been making plans over the past several years for the possibility of whoever purchased Simply Essentials wanting to expand, including buying the Cal’s Auto property at 808 Main Street in February 2020.

At the time of the purchase, Diers said it could help with a future expansion, because the Simply Essentials property was locked in with railroad tracks across the north side of the property and winding around the south and west sides of the plant.

“There’s only one way to go,” he said at the time — toward Main Street.

At the City Council meeting, Diers said one thing the city would be considering is how to go about vacating Main Street between the railroad tracks and North Grand, either selling the property or granting an easement.

“We talked about that at a certain length today, as to what would be needed and the process forward on that,” he said.

Although the city would lose the last block of Main Street before the intersection with North Grand, it would allow the city to “clean up a lot of traffic issues between pedestrians and vehicles up in that area.”

The good thing, he said, is that area of Main Street could be blocked off for Pure Prairie Farms’ use without a lot of construction, “and if for some reason that doesn’t work out we can always reverse that, because we’re not actually going to be changing much.”

Council member Keith Starr asked Diers if he thought changes to the streets in the area might improve safety, “because that corner’s a little tough where it’s at now.”

“It will be good for everybody, Keith,” Diers said. “That area up there where you come up Main Street to a stop sign, you have to look back to your right, back behind you to see who’s coming up North Grand, which is a pretty busy street.

“Part of the expansion they’re talking about is reconfiguring where the employees come and go from, so I’m thinking that would help improve that. If we don’t have people trying to turn there I think that’s going to be a great benefit for the community and for everybody involved. It will be much safer,” Diers said.

Council member DeLaine Freeseman said the Pure Prairie Farms representatives also specifically addressed some issues such as odor problems that sometimes occurred at the Simply Essentials plant and a nearby chicken holding facility, and said they want to avoid repeating that.

“Hopefully they live up to those sentiments,” Freeseman said.