By Alex Gary - October 2nd 2024
BELOIT
The view along State Street and East Grand Avenue started to change Wednesday morning as a Cottage Grove-based company began taking out chunks of the former Kerry Inc. headquarters that faces the East Grand Avenue bridge.
The bridge over the Rock River in downtown Beloit is expected to be closed through Friday for safety reasons as workers from R.G. Huston tear down the eastern side of the 80-100 E. Grand Ave. building originally constructed in 1892 as a shoe store.
The addition that extends over the Rock River built by the S.S. Kresge Co. in 1921 will remain standing this week because the company has more prep work to do before that can come down.
Workers began demolishing the interior of the building at 80-100 E. Grand Ave. in early July.
In 1999, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources determined the building must come down by 2042 because it posed a threat of eventually collapsing into the river.
East Grand Development LLC, an entity set up by Hendricks Commercial Properties, bought the building in 2015 for $1. The city, though, took over ownership of the building in 2022 so that it could receive $1.6 million in grants from the DNR to assist in tearing down the building.
Removing the building should alleviate some flooding issues and the city will be able to extend the Rock River Trail/Downtown Riverwalk. Hendricks plans to build a four-story, 48,000-square-foot mixed use building on the site that would include space for restaurants, retail stores, commercial offices and residential apartments.
Because of the tear down includes working around the Rock River, demolition isn’t expected to be complete until the summer of 2025.
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