Tag:Community
The Remnant Trust
Somewhat a Blast from the Past last week was the discovery of a display of artifacts from The Remnant Trust at the Columbia Club in Indianapolis. Their mission to preserve historic documents promoting individual liberty and human dignity led them to possess original copies of the Declaration of Independence and others even older, written by the likes of Isaac Newton and Aristotle.
In 2010, we met with the founder of The Remnant Trust, Brian Bex, to discuss an OrthoWorx project to house some of their documents in the former Billy Sunday Museum in Winona Lake. (Billy Sunday was a professional baseball player from the Warsaw area, turned evangelist.) OrthoWorx considered this project part of their effort to address the “trailing spouse” issue they had when attracting employees for the Warsaw Orthopedics industry. Executives being recruited to work in Warsaw reported pushback from their spouses who would rather live in a more urban environment with the associated amenities.
The existing building had a lot of rustic shiplap pine woodwork and didn’t have the feel they wanted for a scholarly museum. Office space was limited and the HVAC was inadequate. It also still had much of the Billy Sunday memorabilia in place. Despite all of this, the price was right and we were hired to implement the renovation. The plans for this renovation were completed by Scearce Rudisel Architects (now SRKM Architecture), under the direction of Mary Ellen Rudisel.
New lighting, office space and flooring were part of the overall renovation giving the space a more updated feel. Some of the woodwork was salvaged and relocated to keep the theme consistent. But the main focus was the vault.
The vault would be where the documents would be stored. Most of these would be stored on shelving in standard library manner, while others were placed in their own cases. It was designed to look unassuming, but that belied the underlying construction. Special effort was made to seal the space so that it was protected from the elements. Walls were steel stud construction with double layers of abuse resistant drywall. The door was designed to look like a standard door, but serve as a high security vault door with environmental seals. Special lighting was installed to assure that no detrimental affects to the documents would be caused. The space was also environmentally controlled by a redundant, high-end HVAC system with temperature control that would keep the vault within 1 degree of temperature set point and within 1 percent of humidity set point whether the vault was empty or occupied. Occupancy varied, since it was vacant the majority of the time, but also allowed for visiting scholars as well as school classes and the occasional Remnant Trust party of 30 or more.
One of the interesting tenets of The Remnant Trust is that these works, while revered, should be accessible. Visiting scholars could be seen wearing gloves and turning pages with microspatulas while visitors from the public are allowed to touch these documents, some many hundreds of years old.
Unfortunately, after a few years at this location, The Remnant Trust found a university benefactor and moved the collection to another location. Warsaw did not prove out to be the best location for visiting scholars and for sharing their collection. It’s a loss to our area. But seeing the smaller display in the Columbia Club reminded me of their work. You can make an appointment to for a private tour here, though it’s open to guests and members to walk through anytime.
Come to Culver. We have too much stuff!
Sometimes it takes an outside perspective to give you community insight. I was having a conversation with a new friend that has acquired several properties in Culver, but isn’t as full time resident. He commented that we have storage facilities at all the entrances to Culver. It was kind of a light bulb moment for me. If you come from the north, there’s Culver Storage near the intersection of 10 & 17. If you come from the west, there’s Culver Storage Solutions at the end of Jefferson Street. If you come from the South, you have the new Executive Storage at the end of South Main Street. We have two marinas with large boat storage facilities. At a recent Redevelopment Commission meeting, a member was complaining that some of the downtown commercial buildings are being used for storage in lieu of retail. We apparently have more stuff than we have garage and closet space!
Now I wouldn’t say that storage is our only above average area. For example, we also have more gymnasiums per capita than the average community. Currently Culver Community Schools has three and plans for a Fourth and Culver Academies has three… or more, depending on your definition, i.e. basketball court or not… (Microsoft Co-Pilot says Culver Academies has 6 gymnasiums.) This kind of data is interesting, but it becomes more concerning if it begins to define us.
This is just commentary, not judgement on whether this is good or bad. But it is, sometimes, valuable to have someone from the outside remind us of what we look like. Just like the Culver Community Charrette pointing out that we had a lot of field stone accents throughout town and that it was something to embrace. Since the Charrette, the Welcome to Culver sign at 10 & 17 was built with field stone, the wall at the LSD curve was covered with field stone and several residents and businesses have incorporated field stone into their landscape walls and building facades.
The storage observation may not be as valuable or something that we want to expand on like the fieldstone theme, but it is something notable. If it’s not something we want to be noticed, maybe we encourage landscaping, screening or buffers. There’s a huge difference in appearance and price between the functional units on the north and the premium units on the south. If somehow this is a Culver trend, how do we embrace it and make it blend into our community?
The 2040 Vision Comprehensive Plan addressed some of these things regarding how we want to be perceived. Now we just need to take some of those goals and make them happen.
Disappointing…
The February meeting of the Culver Plan Commission has been cancelled because “there are no agenda items”… This is a missed opportunity to tackle the myriad of suggestions from the the new (last year) Comprehensive Plan.
For Example, this would have been a great opportunity to invite Donny Ritsema from MACOG to come speak about areas of the new Comprehensive Plan that fall under the plan commission’s purview. Donny lead MACOG’s group (along with Olivia Nix) that helped coordinate the comp plan steering committee, helped organize much of the public input and produced the final plan. I’m sure he could have helped define a plan of attack and weeded through what needed addressed by the Plan Commission on their own and for some things, in concert with the Town Council or other Town entities.
I would suggest that the Comprehensive Plan should be a standing agenda item for the Plan Commission as a reminder that there are things to address. When there is a pressing agenda that takes a lot of time, then it would get passed over, but when there is a short agenda or like this month, nothing coming before them from outside, then it could be picked up and moved forward. Incremental advances are better than nothing. As always, I respect that the Plan Commission members are volunteers and appreciate the time they put in. It’s often a thankless job. The comp plan items should be easy items to move forward though. Those items have already gone through community review, plan commission review and town council adoption. Now we just need to implement them.
For some of my previous thoughts on this, see my Implementing Culver’s Comprehensive Plan post.
Growing or Dying
Years ago I was part of a group that went to New Bremen, Ohio. We went there as a delegation from the Culver Chamber of Commerce to meet with Jim Dicke II, to discuss how to turn around Culver and possibly get his assistance. Jim had been instrumental through his company, Crown Equipment, in revitalizing New Bremen. From that small group and the then Culver Chamber Board, the Culver Second Century Committee was born. (More on that another day.) One thing he said in that meeting has stuck with me over the years, “Communities are either growing or dying. There is no such thing as staying status quo.” (I don’t know if it was a personal statement or someone else’s, but I always attribute it to him.) I’ve repeated that over the years in multiple settings. I generally try and attribute it to Jim, but even when I don’t, I’m not too concerned, because it fits with one of my other favorite quotes, “Plagiarism is the Sincerest Form of Flattery.” Which I first saw in a B.C. Comic by Johnny Hart…
In this case, I am asking that question about Marshall County, as one of the first actions of the new County Commissioners was to enact a moratorium on projects that involve Solar Farms, Battery Storage Facilities, Carbon Capture and Data Centers. While I understand some of the arguments about Solar (though I don’t necessarily agree, I’ve discussed that here and here), I am particularly interested here in stopping Data Centers.
Data Centers have been protested in other areas for many reasons. One of them, NYMBYism, seems to be the main one behind these efforts. The protests are not coming from our Amish community, so most of the protestors have cell phones and use the internet. I assume they’re not against them as a concept. I also find that interesting coming from the Commissioners, some of whom have expressed their support for our new President, Donald Trump. In a January 7th press conference, President-elect Trump introduced an investor group, DAMAC, planning to bring $20 billion dollars in data center investment to the U.S. In the speech, he specifically called out Indiana as one of the places to benefit from this investment. Though apparently not Marshall County, per our moratorium.
The others reasons don’t seem to apply or could be controlled. There are complaints from other areas that they use too much power… but that’s what’s drawn them here… our somewhat unique position as a crossroads of power grids. Interestingly, the same reason that the solar farm developers have been drawn here, though for the opposite use, i.e. solar farms uploads power and data centers downloads power. The second complaint is excessive use of water, but that’s been mostly corrected and we don’t have a water shortage here. Also, in other areas they are concerned about the draw on existing water infrastructure, but this moratorium is in the County… which does not have a water system. The third complaint is potential pollution from back-up generators, but again, we’re on a major grid line and if that goes down, there’s a lot more to worry about than back-up generator exhaust! A couple of interesting resources here and here.
The main point here is that we seem to be moving towards an anti-development stance in the county. This despite a new national movement to reduce development impediments, Marshall County seems to be focused on setting up road blocks. I realize that some of this is grassroots, but that doesn’t mean it’s based in facts. It seems to be more based in NIMBYism and lack of knowledge. All of these things would increase our tax base, with minimum disruption to our communities. Yes, they should be researched and possibly controlled, but two years from now, we may lament being passed by.
While a data center wouldn’t employ a lot of people in the long term, it would generate jobs during construction. Once completed, it would be low impact on roads, i.e. no semi-traffic as with other manufacturing. Besides the building itself, they do not use up as much land. They are often taller than our general manufacturing construction, sometimes building 90 feet high. They don’t have larger numbers of regular employees, so no acres of asphalt parking lots. We already have setback requirements, impervious surface requirements and if we don’t want to give exceptions on heights, we have existing height restrictions.
But we currently have a moratorium. So what is our alternative? MCEDC has spearheaded three shell buildings in the past, with what seems to be great success. Are more on the horizon? The last one the building in the Plymouth Industrial park at the SE corner of Pioneer and Jim Neu Drive, which currently houses Divert. It has been occupied since 2022. Is there another in the works? Seems that there should be.
I don’t know what the answer is to the growth question. MCEDC is trying, but it’s hard to do without the County behind them and with headlines that make us seem anti-development. If the County Commissioners and County Council have another plan, I haven’t heard it yet. Hopefully they have something in mind. Because Communities are either growing or dying and I don’t think they want to preside over the latter.
Edit: Yesterday, January 28th, 2025, I attended the PIDCO Annual meeting. The guest speakers were from NIPSCO. The topic of data centers came up as well as wind & solar. Several things of note were mentioned that I thought were worth adding here:
- Marshall County is well positioned to vie for these new developments do to the proximity to the new transmission lines.
- Any infrastructure or increased capacity costs related to a data center would be born by the developer and not the existing rate payers.
- NIPSCO is eager to help if we would choose to pursue a data center.
- NIPSCO is required to have capacity for it’s projected power needs, exclusive of renewables like wind and solar for those time when renewables aren’t available, i.e. when the wind’s not blowing and the sun’s not shining… Regardless of whether wind and solar developments are pursued, NIPSCO is exploring battery storage to even out their capacity and take advantage of storage to supplement electric service when production costs are at their highest.
Housing Density Answers from the Past
March 17, 2025
Kevin Berger
Commentary, Culver, Plymouth
Affordable Housing, Community, Culver, government, housing, Multi-family, Plymouth, Workforce Housing
This is an interesting video with examples of multifamily housing on small lots (3 Flats) as seen in Chicago, Boston and San Francisco. It discusses some of the benefits as well as some of the drawbacks to this type of construction. It also briefly discusses some of the zoning barriers that were put in place to prevent this kind of construction.
It’s interesting that both Culver and Plymouth are looking into how to increase housing density right now, but are facing some pushback on the zoning changes that would be necessary to make this viable. Both communities seem to have active CAVE societies. I’m pretty sure every community has it’s own chapter. Years ago Erik Freeman and I proclaimed Culver’s unofficial motto to be, “Change is Bad; Even if it is Change for the Better”. Cast that as counterpoint to the underlying drumbeat for affordable housing.
Along with the basic zoning barriers, there are are other social and regulatory barriers that would increase challenges. Three story apartment construction would likely force the installation of fire sprinklers. Accessibility might need to be addressed due to the “walk-up” configuration with half a flight or more of stairs. Fire resistant construction between buildings would conflict with escape window requirements for bedrooms. All of these things would make the units safer and universally accessible, but would also drive up the cost. Meanwhile the three examples discussed are still in use in their respective cities; sometimes revered due to their place in the city’s history.
Greater density, even with the cost-increasing challenges listed above, does reduce costs of infrastructure, another big factor in housing affordability. Fewer linear feet of infrastructure is needed per dwelling unit. When this is done for infill properties, it makes better use of infrastructure, including roads, water lines and sewer lines. The one caveat to that is it may well increase impervious surface, further taxing storm water systems, though that is not a given. (They don’t have to be built cheek to jowl as was done historically, particularly in an infill situation.)
Reinventing the wheel can result in some improvements, but also can create some difficulties that were solved in the past. Looking back on what worked, may be part of our solution to the housing shortage problem as we move forward.
0 comments