GAINESVILLE – A recommendation for approval was given to an annexation request and a rezoning request by Koch Foods of Gainesville Monday evening.
The Gainesville Planning and Appeals Board was unanimous in endorsing the plan by Koch Foods to bring under one jurisdiction and one zoning classification all the parcels owed by the Park Ridge, Illinois-based food processor between Industrial Boulevard and Davis Street and along both sides of Mitchell Street.
If given final approval by the Gainesville City Council the campus would then be roughly 10-acres in size and allow for a 170,000-183,000-square foot facility on the site.
William Fasulo, Branch Manager of the Gainesville facility, told members of the Planning and Appeals Board, “Our goal is to build a state-of-the-art facility. Right now we are kind of land-locked…and what we would like to do is keep the existing facility and build the new facility, and then vacate into the new facility.”
Currently Koch operates out of a 74,000-square foot building it acquired in 2002 that was constructed in the early 1960s.
According to documents filed with the city, the new facility will have sixteen truck bays/docking stations. At present during peak hours loading and unloading operations can block one or both lanes of Davis Street, a situation the new complex will eliminate.
No one spoke in opposition to either the annexation or the rezoning request by Koch Foods and the matter now goes to the Gainesville City Council for final approval.
