The Waterloo City Council gave the go-ahead Monday night, Nov. 19, to rezone 2.53 acres formerly occupied by the Rath Packing Company for a meet processing plant. The Waterloo-CedarFalls Courier reported Tuesday the plan is for an organic beef processing facility to employ 74 people with pay of $39,200 annually for 55 of the workers.

According to the Waterloo Council agenda, Crystal Distribution Services sought rezoning from light industrial to heavy industrial for the new plant to be located south of Sycamore Street. It will connect to a Crystal building for cold storage of product, the request states.

It also notes the area proposed for rezoning was “once part of the Rath Packing Plant and has sat vacant since the closing of the facility in 1985.”

The rezoning was recommended for approval by the Waterloo Planning, Programming and Zoning Commission in a document dated Nov. 6.

Crystal Distribution Services website describes the company as providing refrigerated warehousing and offering ” a wide variety of value-added meat processing procedures to help move your product to market.”

Rath Packing was a major pork operation and included hog buying stations in Toledo and Chelsea.

Iowa Premium employs more than 850 at the beef packing plant located on Tama’s east side.