The Dairy Finally Runs Dry Broadview Dairy Leaves Its Historic Home At Washington And Cataldo
Broadview Dairy has left the building.
Spokane’s 100-year-old milk bottling business has moved from its brick home on Washington Street and Cataldo Avenue to the updated facilities of the Darigold plant in North Spokane.
The move has been planned since July when Broadview Dairy’s management group, Inland Northwest Dairies, Inc., announced with Darigold Inc. that the two would consolidate their milk processing and delivery operations. In a time of increased competition, regulatory changes and new technologies, the companies needed to join forces to stay competitive, both companies said.
Inland Northwest Dairies is a subsidiary of Goodale & Barbieri Cos. Seattle-based Darigold is a cooperative of approximately 1,000 dairy farmers in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and California.
The joint business, of which Broadview Dairy is the majority owner and operations manager, is now called Inland Northwest Dairies, L.L.C. It will lease the plant at 33 E. Francis from Darigold.
The consolidation, which moved the Broadview Dairy staff to the Darigold plant, left more than 20 of about 85 Darigold workers without jobs. Those who weren’t hired at the production plant got good severance packages, said Denny Young, secretary treasurer for the Teamsters local that represented Darigold workers.
“A very high percentage of those who applied (for jobs at the new operation) were hired,” said Doug Marshall, spokesman for the Seattle-based Darigold.
The move also left the 97-year-old four-story Broadview Dairy building at 411 W. Cataldo, a city-registered historic structure, empty of both the business and the Broadview Dairy Museum. The Caterina Winery will stay at the property, but the museum will be relocated to the Darigold facility on Francis.
“The museum is closed temporarily,” said Art Coffey, vice president and CEO of Inland Northwest Dairies. “But we are going to reopen the exhibits in the new plant so the public can see the milk being produced. There’s a very nice, wide hallway looking on to the production floor.”
Inland Northwest Dairies, Inc. bought the old brick dairy building and the business in 1991 after the former owner, Foremost Dairies, defaulted on loans and went into receivership.
A few months later, the building was designated a historic structure by the city. The owner restored the building promising to ” …produce interior space that preserves historical features for public viewing…” according to city documents.
In return, the company qualified for tax breaks on improvements to the property, which was assessed at $270,800 in 1991. This year the building is valued at $705,900, according to county assessors.
“It was quite an investment bringing it back,” Coffey said.
The fate of the old building, which is in a prime location near the Spokane Arena, remains uncertain.
“We still don’t know what’s happening,” Coffey said. “It’s available to be redeveloped.”
From an operating standpoint, the merger appears successful. When operating separately, each dairy was running only at about half capacity, about 10 hours a day.
“We were trying to address the inefficiency that both of the companies had,” said Darigold’s Marshall. “From what I understand, it has gone well.”
Now the joint business is running 20 hours a day.
“It still has some capacity left, but not a lot,” Coffey said. “It will make for a pretty efficient operation.”
Both the Darigold and Broadview labels are distributed from the plant, but much of the product is from Darigold farms.
With Broadview running the operation, Teamsters no longer represent the workers at the combined plant.
At one time, Broadview had Teamster workers at the plant on Cataldo, but after a 13-week strike in 1995-1996, the union was decertified.
The new business employs 150 people including delivery workers in Yakima, Pasco, Wenatchee, Lewiston and Moses Lake.
It distributes both Broadview and Darigold products in Idaho, Oregon and all of Eastern Washington.
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