More than two and a half months after a major fire ripped through a Taylor Farms processing plant, the company is making great strides in clearing the debris and getting ready for reconstruction.“Makes me happy that it’s coming back to life, we’re all going to be back again next year here hopefully,” said Jose Maldonado, facility coordinator for the processing and cooling plant on Abbott Street.Fire ripped through the facility on April 13, destroying a 60,000 square foot section of the plant. A majority of the 154,000 square foot facility that is used for cooling and shipping was not damaged.Taylor Farms is working quickly to get the damaged portion of the plant rebuilt. Last week demolition of the burned-out portion was completed and reconstruction is scheduled to begin next week.A company spokeswoman said it has been a community-wide effort to get the facility cleaned up so construction can begin.“The city of Salinas has been phenomenal to get us back up and running and employees back to work our engineering teams some that have come out of retirement to help us our construction teams our employees and our customers that have been loyal and supportive during this,” said Rachel Molatore, spokeswoman for Taylor Farms.The processing plant is one of 21 facilities operated by the ag giant in North America and provides a majority of west coast food service customers with fresh lettuce and vegetables. “We’re operating in Canada, the U.S., and in Mexico so with that footprint we’ve been able to lean on some of our other facilities,” Molatore said.When the fire broke out Taylor Farms was in the process of shifting its winter food processing from Yuma, Arizona to the Salinas plant.“Everything was already being torn down in Yuma to be sent this way,” Maldonado said.Molatore said an exact cause of the fire has yet to be determined but soon after the fire was put out firefighters said maintenance crews doing welding may have ignited the 4-alarm blaze.A dollar amount of the damage has yet to be tallied. But Molatore said reconstruction of the facility could result in a more state-of-the-art production facility.“Now we can take a look at that design and come up with a layout for that design of the processing facility and come together with a fully automated line,” said Molatore, adding that no jobs would be lost.Within weeks of the fire, the facility was back up and running as a cooling and shipping plant. The facility employs nearly 1,000 people and Taylor Farms says no one lost their job.If construction stays on track the processing side of the plant could be up and running next April. The company would like to have a ribbon-cutting on the 1-year anniversary of the destructive fire.“Happy, excited it’s coming back,” Maldonado said.