I’ve been remiss on following up on my previous post regarding receiving the Half Century Award from Governor Holcomb. Dr. Berger had too many patients scheduled to take time off for this, so my niece, Nikole Garthwaite, graciously filled in as my plus 1 and personal photographer.
The event was held in the Rotunda of the State House and was put on by IEDC (Indiana Economic Development Corporation) with Governor Holcomb handing out the awards. Elaine Bedel, head of IDEC, served as master of ceremonies. An auspicious location to say the least.
There were a large group of recipients, both in the Century and Half Century category. It was a very congenial event. The State staff made it clear that receiving the award was an acknowledgment of a significant achievement worth honoring. It was humbling being in the group… More so being in the smaller subset of family businesses that achieved the milestone. There were only few there that had stayed family businesses past the 3rd generation.
Easterday Construction was pleased to support Chris in his Eagle Scout project for Miller’s Senior Living. Great effort!
Some of the boulders arrived on site last week. Here are a few of them staged and ready to place. Unfortunately there are four truckloads waiting for trucks to deliver them. The quarry is struggling to find transportation to make their deliveries. Our supplier is chasing options and we hope to have the rest of the materials on site soon. FH Deck has already completed most of the demolition on site. We have completed the electrical demolition in the Beach Lodge in preparation for connections to the new pavilion too. We should be ready to rock and roll (pun intended) once the rest of the stone arrives.
This isn’t the only outdoor amphitheater project Easterday Construction has built in Marshall County. In 1995 we built the Plymouth Performing Arts Center which later became the William and Mary Young Amphitheater on Randolph Street in Plymouth’s Centennial Park. That facility has become instrumental in bringing live entertainment to Plymouth and has been an enhancement to the Blueberry Festival. No doubt the new Damore Amphitheater will have a similar effect on Culver’s summer performing arts offerings and should be an enhancement to Lake Fest each year.
Wikipedia defines Suburban Sprawl thus: “Urban sprawl or suburban sprawl describes the expansion of human populations away from central urban areas into low-density, monofunctional and usually car-dependent communities, in a process called suburbanization.” While Culver isn’t exactly racing down the road to strip malls, it’s worth looking at the changes occuring in recent and proposed developments in Culver.
Culver’s early development was very traditional. Despite dealing with the curvature of Lake Maxinkuckee, a traditional grid system was used for both the commercial and residential areas with the section of Lake Shore Drive along the Park being one of the few deviations with some curvature to reflect the lake shore. Since that time, the newer subdivisions have not followed the grid. The Riggings, Maple Ridge and Edgewood Estates are all dead end or loop streets with no plans to tie into the grid. It’s a little cheesy, but Adam Conover of “Adam Explains Everything” does a quick run down of some of the issues here:
We had the preconstruction meeting for the Damore Amphitheater this morning. We had all the staking completed and the tiers painted on the grass… but the paint didn’t show up too well through the snow! (See Right) Happy April!!! Not exactly the way we wanted to start the project…
The timelike on this calls for completion by Memorial Day. Despite the snow fall Mother Nature so rudely dropped on us today, we should still be good to go for that. There may be some plantings that stretch that date if the nurseries can’t open, but it’s too soon to be pessimistic about that. We have most of our orders placed and should be good to go with all of the hardscape.
FH Decks and Landscaping, Inc. will be our major subcontractor on this project, completing the earthwork, stone work and landscape installation. We wanted to keep this project local and were happy that it turned out that way.
This project was part of Culver’s Stellar Communities application in 2016, but through fundraising and other grants, Culver was able to move forward on this project without Stellar. This was done through IHCDA’s Patronicity program. That made room for other project funding in the 2017 Stellar application. Thanks go to the Damore family stepping up as the lead sponsor. Their leadership was invaluable.