Culver – Page 22 – Easterday Construction Co., Inc.

114 North Main Street

September 8, 2020 by Kevin Berger

We’re working with Bob Nowalk on the the renovation of his property at 114 North Main Street in Culver. Sometimes buildings are historic and sometimes they are just old. This building does have some history, but not much of its facade was reminiscent of that history. Stepping back through time, this building was Michelle’s Head Quarters, Zeke’s Arcade, J’s 5 & …, The Dime Store and a Ben Franklin Store. (I tried to find Jeff Kinney’s “A Walk Down Main Street” story on this building, but finally gave up)

Early photographs that Bob found showed a wood store front which has been gone for decades. He considered going back to that, but not only would it increase the upkeep costs, it also would not have been in keeping with the character of the rest of the block. In the end, he chose to go with a new brick facade, but change the entrance location to provide a more modern, accessible approach. This also gives him more continuous window space for displays. A picture from the the Culver Union Township Public Library website shows the brick facade was there in the 50’s, but not the green aluminium store front we just removed.

A former student of Bob’s did the rough design for the renovation and this is what we based our construction on. It shows the entrance relocated to the left. It remains recessed. We are keeping the same stepped parapet at the top. In lieu of the named marker on the parapet, Bob chose to go with a more simple, address marker. Bob also chose to reduce the marker, so it won’t be quite as prominent in the picture.

Bob went with a natural, sandblasted limestone sign, so it will fit with some of the other building markers downtown. Unlike the one to the south on the Marmont Lodge Building, 114’s sign has the characters cut in relief. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do, so this is the marker making its way to Culver via car trunk…

Meager framing exposed after parapet was removed.

Once the brick demolition was completed, we found a couple of additional issues. 1) The structural steel beam was in reasonable condition, particularly considering it was oversized, but it was not properly supported. The fact that it was supported by the facade brick probably contributed to some of the brick deterioration. There was no lateral support for the steel beam either. It was stabilized by a 2 x 12 which had been mitered down to only a 2 x 4’s worth of bearing. 2) The parapet had been constructed using ceramic block. When the block was uncovered, we found that they were severely deteriorated and had to be removed as well.

Block backer in place and brick facade partially complete.

To correct the above issues, we installed structural steel columns. We used C channel columns to minimize the footprint. These were bolted to the columns and the existing beam. We were mainly concerned about bearing, not uplift in this condition. For lateral stabilization, we tied the beam back to the existing ceiling joists using 2 x 8’s. The ceiling joist were pocketed into the existing side walls, so they were stable. we attached the 2 x 8’s at 24″ o/c across four joists anchoring them at each crossing creating a gridwork and thus, a diaphragm frame. To replace the ceramic block we used 4″ concrete block to create a backer for the brick facade and to help support the limestone caps.

As soon as the brick work is done, we’ll be able to order the glass and proceed with the store front aluminum. Bob plans to open an art gallery and small event space here. 114 North Main Street will become The Unintended Curator. This should prove a nice addition to the downtown and I’m sure people will soon forget what the building even looked like before.

Easterday Lore

September 13, 2020August 17, 2020 by Kevin Berger

I thought I would stick some “Easterday Lore” up here occasionally. Some of this will be history, some of it will be stories, some of it will be tips… ALL of it will be suspect, based on hearsay and things passed down through the oral history of the Easterday Family, blood or otherwise. We also have a page here which is more direct history of the company.

Shiny copper sheets from Solitaire Overseas

Today’s tidbit may be a tip, but I cannot personally attest to its veracity. In the early days of Russell L. Easterday Construction and Supply Company, we did a lot of construction at the Culver Academies, then Culver Military Academy. That has continued throughout the decades. One of the early projects included some copper work. New copper comes bright and shiny like a new penny. This project was an addition to an existing building and the new shiny copper stood out next to the older existing metalwork. My great grandfather, Russell Easterday, received this as a complaint and was a bit flummoxed. There was nothing wrong with the craftsmanship, but the new addition looked too new… an unusual complaint at that time. As always, there was an event coming up and they didn’t want to wait for the copper to obtain a naturally aged patina.

Grandpa talked to painters, some paint suppliers and finally contacted some old-country sheet metal workers he knew. One older gentleman who had been in the trade forever said, “Ack, that’s no problem. Just douse it down with some horse p*ss!” Easterday Lore is that this worked. I’m sure the Black Horse Troop was the source, but there was no discussion of how it was collected!

Update on The Paddocks 5-20-20

May 22, 2020 by Kevin Berger

Progress has continued on The Paddocks Apartments and Townhouses over the past month. The first building erected was a townhouse building. The exterior is not complete with the exception of the garage doors which are scheduled to be installed within the next week. We upgraded the initially specified faux stone facade accents to actual fieldstone. It looks great! This also follows Culver’s Charrette recommendations for continuing a fieldstone theme on new construction in Culver wherever possible. The driveway base is in place and we are working on scheduling asphalt. Paving may have to wait until the second drive is complete, but Phend & Brown is looking at ways to expedite this for us.

Inside the townhouse building, the walls have been insulated, drywall has been hung & finished and painting is underway. We are expecting delivery of cabinets in the next day or two. Things will be changing rapidly there as we move through finishes.

First Apartment Building Insulation Underway

The three apartment buildings are all under roof and are at various stages of completion for infrastructure. We are currently waiting on siding to arrive for installation to begin on those exteriors. All interior infrastructure is in place on the west apartment building and insulation is underway this week. Drywall installation should follow shortly.

The second townhouse building at the far end of the site has footings, frostwalls and underslab infrastructure in place. All of the wall panels are on site and framing should begin as soon as the slab has been poured. We expect that to happen yet this week.

The other exciting news here is the finalization of a landscape plan. This project is going for NGBS Silver status and part of that point system requires a Sustainable Landscape. We have contracted with Cardno to provide this for us. We asked them to include a presentation to the Culver Town Council, since some elements differ from current ordinance requirements. That presentation was made on the 12th. You can find more on that, including a short video of that presentation in a previous post here. The plan will go through some additional tweaking, but we have a great start here. We hope to have plantings completed by the end of this year.

Draft Sustainable Landscape Plan as of 5-1-20

We’re pleased with how things are coming together and the kind comments we’re receiving about the project. We continue to feel that this will be a great addition to the Culver community and our proud that this is our contribution to Culver’s Stellar designation.

New Culver Information Sign

May 18, 2020 by Kevin Berger

Marty Oosterbaan gave an Stellar Update to the Culver merchants on the weekly Zoom call Friday. The item that caught my attention was the community sign project. I remembered that from the Stellar presentation and I think it’s a good idea. Basically, the plan is to establish electronic signs in all of the Marshall County communities, similar to the existing Lions Club sign in Culver, where community and regional messages can be displayed. This would be a just another form of communication supplementing internet and newspapers. Community events can be listed and can be cross-listed between the communities to promote local events.

I am working on a similar project for the Francesville Salem Township Public Library so I shared some of those cost estimates. (An electronic sign runs between $25k & $35k per Vanadco Sign) I have a few more thoughts on how this sign should be handled in Culver, so I thought I would share them here:

I would like to see Culver follow the Charrette recommendations when they think about this and continue the fieldstone theme. The Chamber and the Second Century Committee really pushed this early on and I think it’s worth carrying forward. Their efforts resulted in the fieldstone theme for the Culver sign at 10 & 17, the Lion’s Club sign at the Depot and the stone wall at the turn across from The Root Beer Stand. We’ve gotten away from this, but I think things like that make a statement. We’re using fieldstone accents on the townhomes at The Paddocks for that reason. Personally I was very disappointed when the Firemen went with the faux stone in lieu of the fieldstone that was proposed for their memorial.
The Chamber of Commerce thought long and hard about the sign at the corner of S.R. 17 and S.R. 10. Other communities were putting up the smaller plastic signs. Marshall County Tourism was giving away some of these and they were installed at three of our other entrances to Town. The Chamber wanted to make a statement with the sign they installed and they wanted that sign to be something substantial and permanent. Stellar should consider this permanence too. Culver should consider kicking in money if the budget is too tight. We should make this one of the things that commemorates the Stellar effort for decades.
I think there needs to be a lot of care in decisions about where we place this:
- While the best visible place might be above the above mentioned wall on the Lake Shore Drive turn, it should not be placed where it detracts from the Lake, Park or other current picturesque views and vistas.
- The Lions Club sign already serves this function to some extent, so providing some separation to expand the audience, and frankly, space out the visual clutter, would be preferable.
- We have a sign ordinance and while this would be a municipal sign and therefore exempt, those criteria were memorialized in the Zoning Ordinance for a reason and should be considered.
- We should not get hung up on this being a free standing sign. There are options for placing this on buildings where it would be highly visible and such a location would be more cost effective if it work.
- The Francesville Library wants to use the sign to communicate to their community about the library, but then will put community messages on it at other times. Maybe Culver Union Township Public Library is another potential partner?
There have been efforts in the past to create information kiosks in town. The cost has always turned out to be prohibitive, but this might be an opportunity to combine things like this. Even if it’s not part of the original project, if access to the electrical service can be made available for future uses, that expands the bang for the buck.
Because this will draw some electricity, working with the various utilities up front may garner free service if they get some accolades. I know NIPSCO and IMPA give economic development grants for things and this could be applicable.
And a final caution that we do our best to make the back-end bullet proof or as much so as possible. I have been working with Good Oil and they just recently told me about how a kid had figured out how to hack into their network from his cell phone and patch in porn on the TV’s at one of their stores. If you are going to set this up so that the message can be programmed remotely by MC Tourism or other, then it has internet connections and is a target for hackers.

I think this is a great idea and has a lot of potential. As always, the Devil is in the Details. Good luck, Marty!

A Sustainable Landscape for The Paddocks

May 20, 2020May 18, 2020 by Kevin Berger

One of the things that IHCDA wanted to see in our RHTC application for The Paddocks Apartments was a Sustainable Landscape Plan. We chose to meet NGBS Silver status for this project.

To help us with this, we contacted Chris Kline, Sustainability Manager, at Cardno. I have personally worked with Chris and Cardno in the past on various projects through my association with the Lake Maxinkuckee Environmental Fund. Chris brought in Christine Dittmar as the project manager. We had several conversations regarding our goals and preferences including a couple of site visits and several plan reiterations. The current version is what you see below.

The key is a bit hard to read at this scale, so briefly: Green is standard lawn turf. Dark green is a low-mow fescue similar to what you would find in the rough of a golf course. The orange area is a prairie buffer between The Paddocks and the adjacent property. The pink is a detention pond planted as a pollinator garden with native wild flower plants that will have rotating blooms. The dark purple at the top is another detention pond which will have a variety of native plantings that can tolerate the fluctuation of water associated with the pond.

The goal was to have the best of both worlds here. Because this complex is geared towards families, we wanted adequate areas of turf where children would have the opportunity to play. These areas of turf are also used to border the native, naturalized areas, thus giving them definition. In some of the transition areas, we have included fruit trees for interest. Signage will be included to explain to residents and passersby what they are seeing.

Along with the turf recreation areas, Cardno has included a natural playground area, a fire pit and a community garden. An area for a second community garden has been set aside if a second is warranted; otherwise it will remain another area of turf.

We asked Chris to include a presentation to the Culver Town Council which was made at the May 12th meeting via Microsoft Teams. Since this was an online presentation, We also requested that it be recorded to be shared. The presentation to the Council was abbreviated in order to be cognizant of their time, but the long version was recorded here:

It will be interesting to see this come to fruition. We expect the majority of this landscape to be in place yet this year as the site work wraps up. The first units should be available for rent sometime late this summer.