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Cleaning up the old McCormick-Beta Brands candy plant site has begun.

Finally, after four years of new ownership, the soil on the site is being removed for cleaning and a massive, 25,000-gallon buried oil tank on site will be removed.

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“We are pretty excited about this project,” said Jared Rundle Drake, project manager for Sierra Construction of Woodstock, which owns the former plant.

“The scale of the site, just walking through the building, the architecture, it was really a feat of its own back in those days.”

Drake also feels a personal connection to the site at 1156 Dundas St. His grandmother worked at McCormick for 30 years and his mother spent a summer there.

“It’s one of the reasons I wanted to work on this,” he added.

The cleanup of the site will total about $8 million and the city is pitching in $2.5 million to help with the cleanup. In addition, the demolition and reconstruction of the original building will cost about $6 million.