LAKE CITY, Iowa — More than six months after the fire that destroyed the Dobson Pipe Organ Builders factory, the owner said they are starting the rebuilding process.
John Panning, the owner and president of the company, said they have hired a Des Moines-based designer Ask Studio to start the process.
Since the fire in June, Panning's company has been operating out of four smaller locations.
But he's ready to move back to his original lot in the town square in Lake City and have all 18 employees under one roof again.
"It was a process of determining where the best spot for it was," Panning said. "We found for a lot of reasons ... some of them are just infrastructure, but also kind of spiritually, psychologically, being in the center of town felt like the right place for us."
RELATED: Dobson Pipe Organ Builders getting back to work, but not in building that caught fire in June
Panning said the design is all ideas right now, but it is important for his workers to have a say in what the layout will look like.
"The people that build the organs are the ones that know what works for them," he told Local 5. "We wanted to bring everybody into the circle."
He stated the most important thing the building will have is more fire protection.
"We did have a little bit of fire suppression equipment in the old building … but we didn't have anything throughout the whole building and obviously that's going to be very important for the new one," Panning said.
They are expected to break ground on the new building, which he said will likely not be as large as the old one, in the fall.
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