Group eyes demolition of former Springfield Pillsbury Mill site. Here's what's next.

Chris Richmond said in the 21 years his father, Chuck, worked at Pillsbury Mills in Springfield as a cooper and later as a plant painter and millwright, he never once set foot on the 18-acre property.

It wasn't until closer to 2017, when Richmond, the former Springfield Fire Marshal, worked with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cleanup that he first went past the front gate.

"The last two years, I'm arguably now the guy who knows the property better than anybody," said Richmond, who heads the not-for-profit Moving Pillsbury Forward that bought the north end site for $1 back in 2022. "But, no, I never dreamt I would be leading the charge to resolve and grapple with Pillsbury for the community."

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What that means is securing the funding for the remediation and eventual teardown of all structures on the site that in its heyday supplied Pillsbury flour and cake mixes nationwide and was an economic engine for the city employing up to 1,500 people. The plant was closed in 2001, a decade after the company sold the plant to Cargill.

About $7.3 million of the anticipated $10 to $12 million to complete the job is hand, Richmond said, with $3.8 million of that coming from the feds. The city of Springfield has budgeted $2 million, and the state has kicked in $1.2 million. The rest, he said, comes from private funds, like the Community Foundation for the Land of Lincoln.

The timeline for demolition

Richmond said by fall a remediation contractor should be on site with perhaps some demolition happening concurrently and through the winter.

Moving Pillsbury Forward did a survey of all the buildings and continues to work with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency on soil testing and groundwater testing it did at the site.

In order to access funding from the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development, Moving Pillsbury Forward has to do a full review of the site which includes things like historic preservation elements.

The first to come down will be the milling and manufacturing buildings. The 160 100-foot-tall silos that collectively stored about three million bushels of grain and the 20-story head house will face demolition further down the line.

When all is said and done, about 70,000 tons of concrete will be repurposed, Richmond said.

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What will happen to the graffiti art?

Even under Moving Pillsbury Forward's tenure, graffiti art has flourished in the former buildings.

That's because Richmond and historic curator Robert Mazrim brought in Alex Smith, known as "Shock," and Dana Maltby, known as "Static," who had been working at the site on their own for years, as artists-in-residents. The two have even had public exhibitions of their work.

"They're making a broader social statement about how our culture goes about dealing with these older industrial sites, these rust belt facilities," Richmond said of the graffiti art.

There is a reckoning, Richmond admitted, that as the buildings go away, the art goes away.

"They understand the art form they deal with is very fluid and passes in a short time frame," Richmond said. "These aren't oil and canvas paintings meant to last for 100, 200 years or more. It's an interesting subset of art."

Telling stories

The demolition is bittersweet, Richmond acknowledged, because former Pillsbury workers, some of whom worked side-by-side with family members, have been a staple of historic tours he has given of the site. The last of those tours will be given April 6 and April 13.

Richmond has held "office hours" at the former site, regularly scheduled times when he has talked former mill workers, neighbors or just about anybody who has a memory of Pillsbury.

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One of the more powerful experiences Richmond said he had was giving a tour to a former millwright who worked with his father there. In the basement of the old A-B Mill, he found his old workbench and a coffee cabinet he and another worker made more than 30 years ago. The cabinet is now hanging in the former worker's garage.

"It was clear there was a positive work culture here and that the people you worked with were like an extended family," Richmond said.

What's next for the site?

Public officials have referred to the site as an eyesore. Polly Poskin, also of Moving Pillsbury Forward, admitted "it's a pretty magnificent-looking eyesore, given how well it was engineered, how well it was built and the great purpose it served."

The group looked at possible repurposing of some the structures, especially the silos, but they were "speculative and expensive," Richmond admitted.

Poskin, who heads the Harvard Park Neighborhood Association, said there's an element of sadness to the demolition but "if the buildings aren't removed, 18 acres of land doesn't become available for redevelopment, which is what this area of town needs.

"It's saying goodbye to what used to be an economic driver for the community and hopefully opening the door to more economic development for the neighborhood and the entire city."

Ald. Roy Williams Jr., whose Ward 3 includes the Pillsbury site and some of the surrounding neighborhood, said he's happy "anytime Pillsbury gets funding."

As far as what happens next, "I want it down first," Williams said. "Then we can start having community meetings. My only demand is that the people who have to look at it every day, their voice has to be at the table."

Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788; sspearie@sj-r.com; X, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Springfield group moves forward on demolition at Pillsbury Mills