Oregon-based Tillamook buys former Prairie Farms plant in Decatur

DECATUR — An Oregon-based ice cream company has acquired the former Prairie Farms plant with plans to “substantially develop and improve” it for use as a production and distribution facility.

Tillamook County Creamery Association, a farmer-owned dairy cooperative, purchased the property, located along the east side of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive between Marietta Street and Wabash Avenue, for $2.55 million last November, according to Macon County property records.

The company plans to invest at least $50 million into the campus and expects to employ about 45 people in full-time positions, according to a development agreement between the company and city of Decatur.

An official announcement from the company is expected on Monday, when company executives will make a presentation to the Decatur City Council, which will then likely vote on the development agreement. (Read the agreement here.) 

The city and Tillamook both declined to comment ahead of Monday’s meeting.

The co-op’s purchase of the Decatur facility came less than a year after Edwardsville-based Prairie Farms shut down production there, impacting up to 35 jobs.

Prairie Farms bought the facility in 1977 from Swift & Co., which opened it in 1918. For years, the former produced butter and processed chickens at the site. Ice cream production began there in 1950.

"Since the closure of the Prairie Farms Ice Cream plant on North Martin Luther King Jr. Dr., the City and the Economic Development Corporation have been working together to locate another ice cream manufacturer into this facility," City Manager Scot Wrighton wrote in a memo to the council supporting the adoption of the redevelopment agreement with Tillamook. 

The sprawling industrial property consists of several buildings.

Under the proposed agreement, the city of Decatur would cover the costs of demolishing a vacant warehouse at 805 N. Morgan St. either through the reimbursement of Tillamook or by taking on the demolition itself. The company will have two years to demolish the structure or ask that the city do it.

The warehouse was built in 1920 and housed the McClelland Grocery Co., which later became the National Grocery Co. The building was later the site of Morehouse and Wells. Co. wholesale hardware, according to Herald & Review archives. The dilapidated structure has been vacant for at least a decade.

The company will have three years to complete the larger project, which is expected to include significant improvements to many of the existing building structures. Additional details about the company’s plans for the campus were not immediately available.

Beyond help with demolition costs, Tillamook is expected to apply for tax credits through the Decatur-Macon County Enterprise Zone, which could include property tax abatements and an exemption from paying sales tax on building and material costs.

The deal would not move forward without the incentives being offered by the city, according to the agreement.

Though it will have a considerably smaller footprint in terms of employment, the company’s investment is welcome economic development news following the shock shutdown of Akorn Pharmaceuticals last month, which left nearly 400 people in the Decatur area out of work.

It will also provide a boost to a part of the city that's been heavily impacted by industrialization. The plant is just north of the 100 year-old Walrus Manufacturing plant, a vast red brick former factory which had to be partially demolished after a wall collapse in November 2021.

Tillamook was founded in 1909, according to its website. It is made up of more than 110 family-owned dairy farms primarily in Tillamook County, Oregon. It employs more than 900 people, according to its LinkedIn page.

They tout ice cream made with “high quality ingredients, more cream and less air than the industry standard for ice cream, with no artificial flavors or sweeteners, no synthetic colors, and no high fructose corn syrup.”