Danville Quaker Oats building scheduled to be demolished soon

DANVILLE, Ill. (WCIA) — A historic building in Danville may soon be demolished.

About four months ago city officials weren’t certain about the future of the facility. Now they’ve been hearing from PepsiCo that the Former Quaker Oats building will be demolished soon.

According to Danville Mayor Rickey Williams Jr., this is a big loss and is devastating to hear about.

The facility had 65 years of production with more than 500 paying jobs for the community.

Mayor Williams says what hurts him the most is seeing people without jobs. He says the city owns nearly 100 acres west of the building.

Williams also said he’s been in talks with PepsiCo to see if they can get the property Quaker Oats sits on.

“So, there’s actual immediate real access if a company should need that. So, imagine now we have a site that’s got all the utilities that we need, that has all the land that we need, that’s located in a place where people are used to industry anyways. It’s the perfect scenario for the future,” Mayor Rickey Williams Jr. said.

He said there isn’t anything specific he’d like to put in place of Quaker Oats right now but when the opportunity comes, he wants to be ready.

It is still undetermined when construction crews will be demolishing Quaker Oats, but WCIA will keep you updated as the demolition moves forward.

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