Habitat for Humanity moving into historic Pocatello building

POCATELLO, Idaho (KIFI/KIDK) - For more than a year, Katie Counts, manager of the Habitat for Humanity Restore, has felt the need to expand. The current store of off Garrett Way wasn't the right size for the things she was hoping to achieve.

Sometime last year, Counts drove by 345 So. 2nd, the former Lion's Candy location, and liked what she saw.

"I just drove by it and thought that it had a lot of character and that it would be a really good home for the new Restore," Counts said.

The building is "almost double the space" of the Garrett Way location and will allow more items to be displayed in a more organized fashion. The two-floor building has been empty for several years and Counts is excited to revitalize it while keeping pieces of its history intact.

Among the relics Counts plans are to keep in use are the freight elevator and an old Howe floor scale, the latter of which she plans to use to illustrate the weight of everything that goes into each house Habitat builds.

"Using that scale, utilizing that history that's there, is we can bring awareness to what's really going on with the Habitat homes," she said.

On Tuesday, Counts and local Allstate employees were doing some work on the century-old building.

"So we've been doing a lot of the prep work and cleaning," Dereese Goodwin, an Allstate Frontline Leader, said. "So we've done a lot of sweeping -- sweeping up some debris -- cleaning off blinds, walls, we're gonna be painting."

"There's a lot of deep cleaning that needs to be done and we've been helping out with a lot of that," Goodwin added.

Though there is still a considerable amount of work that needs to be done, Counts said the current plan is to close up shop at the Garrett Way location on Dec. 14 and begin business at the new site on Jan. 7.

"It's going to be a mad rush, but we're excited to get in here and get started," Counts said.