projects
Riverside Commons Plymouth Ground Breaking Ceremony 11/2/21
Marshall County Crossroads is coordinating a ground breaking ceremony for Riverside Commons apartments in Plymouth tomorrow, November 2, 2021 at 10:30am. The ceremony will be at the site at the corner of Baker Street and Richter Road on the east side of Plymouth. Marty Oosterbahn will speak for Marshall County Crossroads. Mayor Senter will speak for the City of Plymouth and Kevin L. Berger will speak for Culver Sand Hill Farm LLC and Easterday Construction Co., Inc.
We’re hoping for a good event to kick this project off. This is just for the Plymouth portion of the project which consists of 40 units. We will have a separate ground breaking ceremony next Spring for the second part of this development, consisting of an additional 8 units in LaPaz.
Actual construction should begin quickly with erosion control and earthwork. The first units should be open within 18 months.
Hobie Martin
Easterday Construction lost another friend earlier this month. Hobart (Hobie) Martin passed away September 5th. You can read his (Impressive!) obituary here.
We met Hobie through is connection to the Veterans Memorial at Fletcher Cemetery. That connection was through his son, Architect Brent Martin, who we have worked with extensively on many projects. When I first met him, I said, “It’s nice to meet you Mr. Martin.”, to which he replied, “If we’re going to work together we should be friends. Call me Hobie!” I definitely enjoyed our time working together.
In 2014 we were contracted to move the existing memorial stone to a new location on a plaza created for it. The stone has the names of veterans carved into it and sadly was running out of space. You can find several posts about working on this project here.
Knowing this historic significance of the piece made the project a bit daunting. We ended up working with Tom Lenker to make this move as he was always one of the equipment operators I trusted most. (When someone would ask about him, I told them I would trust him to scratch an itch on my right shoulder blade with an excavator tooth without a second thought.)
While I didn’t see Hobie often after that project, I did keep track of him through Brent. He lived a long and good life and in the end, was able to pass in his home with his family there.
The project goal was to have the project complete by Memorial Day. Several of us from Easterday Construction attended the dedication service and the Memorial Day Service that year. I stopped to check on it when I went to Hobie’s visitation and the plaza is a great tribute to his community service.
Blast from the Past – Culver Academies’ Boy Scout Headquarters
At the award ceremony for Ginny earlier this month, I was reminded of Culver Academies‘ connection to the Boy Scouts of America. In 2010, we built a cabin to be used as a Boy Scouts Headquarters at the far east side of the Woodcraft Camp. The picture to the right is the cabin when it was completed. You can see some pictures of the cabin under construction here.
The cabin is a scaled down version of the Woodcraft Camp sleeping cabins, following the same basic design, but including a larger porch that doubles as a project work space and a stage for presentations. The ribbon cutting ceremony for the project was scheduled to coincide with the 100 years of scouting jamboree that was held in Washington, D.C. that year.
Over the years, Easterday Construction Co., Inc. has completed many projects at Culver Academies, from new construction to major remodels. As has been discussed here before, the origins of our company are tied to the work our founder, Russell L. Easterday, did for James I. Barnes Construction in the early 1920’s. This prompted the creation of Russell L. Easterday Construction and Supply Company as a subsidiary of Barnes Construction and the gentleman’s agreement that allowed Russell to make the subsidiary his own company.
114 North Main Street
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…
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.
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.
Update on The Paddocks 5-20-20
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.
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.
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.
