PUD – Easterday Construction Co., Inc.

Culver Business Park

May 31, 2013August 1, 2012 by

Jay Bletzinger has a vision for a new business park in Culver. He has commissioned Scearce Rudisel Architects to create some preliminary drawings and site plans. He has looked at a couple of locations and one of them is my Sand Hill Farm property. The other is the 19+ acre property owned by JD One JD Two, Inc. (locally known as the Jefferson Street Dicke Property) bordered by Jefferson St., Mill St., and S.R. 17. I’ve discussed the possibility of a Sand Hill Farm PUD here before, but due to the sluggish economy I’ve pretty much put the idea on hold. Possibly this is a reason to resurrect the idea. Jay has put together some interesting ideas and has plans to be the first tenant!

Preliminary Concept Drawings were previously commissioned for both of these properties by the Culver Redevelopment Commission (CRC). Those drawings were prepared by Lehman & Lehman and presented to the CRC in 2007. (I have a hard copy, but if electronic copies exist, I do not have access to them.) This led to the CRC extending water and sewer to the end of Jefferson Street in hopes of spurring development on the Dicke property. Along with the utility extensions there were plans for relocating power lines, widening Jefferson Street, adding sidewalks and landscaping the area with new trees and sod. Unfortunately negotiations with NIPSCO fell apart and the completion of this project was put on hold.

Jay believes that there is a need for incubator office and manufacturing space in Culver and that these can be combined in a viable business park. The building plan shows back to back suites with offices at the front, manufacturing/warehousing at the back. The rear of each suite would back up against a common loading dock area. The “front” of the building would consist of small commercial office spaces. In both cases, the offices and the manufacturing/warehousing spaces are divided by walls that are non-load bearing so that they can be removed to provide flexibility in rental space. Jay’s initial build-out ideas and cost/lease projections are here and continued here.

Complete Streets

October 12, 2010 by

H.B. 1182, legislation defining Complete Streets for Indiana streets and highways, passed the Indiana House but didn’t make it through the Senate earlier this year. This Bill followed a national trend to look at streets in a more holistic fashion, taking into account pedestrians, bicycles and public transportation, rather than just the minimalist approach of expediting the transit of cars from point A to point B. The Complete Streets ideal also looks at issues concerning stormwater control and optimizaton of pavement.

Culver recently received a grant for renovations to Main Street as it runs through the downtown business district. My understanding is that plans are underway to facilitate these improvements. I spoke to Town Manager, Michael Doss, and he did not believe that the Complete Streets standards would apply. (That was shortly after the grant was obtained and now his remarks appear sage-like as the legislation failed to move forward.) Some of the proposed standards may be of value though and hopefully will be considered by the designer. Improvements that make the downtown business district more pedestrian and cyclist friendly should be helpful. We also have a continuing stormwater issue in Culver that could be improved by changes to impervious surfaces in the downtown. Corrections to the existing stormwater system as well as other infrastructure should be considered as part of this project. It would be prudent to make sure that we’re not tearing up the new street in a couple of years to correct underlying problems.

Culver does not have a lot of new road construction planned, so opportunities to employ this type of design is limited. Now that the review of the the Culver Zoning Ordinance is coming to a close, it might be time to revisit the Subdivision Ordinance. That document has not been updated in decades. The Culver Comprehensive Plan is also past due for a review. Some of the new research and trends should be considered for implementation in our planning documents. Even without updates to these planning documents, there is the potential for doing this type of design through PUD’s under the current ordinance – something I would hope to accomplish with Sand Hill Farm.

Sandhill Farm – Suwanee Town Center

December 14, 2008 by

Last week Becky and I took a week and went to Georgia and Florida. We drove down to Atlanta on Thanksgiving Day and spent that weekend with one of my best friends, Kim Whitten, who was also my secretary at my previous employer. We spent the weekend with her family before going on to Florida and Key West. We came back and stayed with them for the weekend on the return leg of our trip as well. Even when I lived there, I referred to the area as Atlanta, but in reality, Kim lives in Suwanee, Georgia. (Yeah, like the song.)

In touring around our old stomping grounds, we went to see Suwanee Town Center. Rather than trying to revive the old downtown, Suwanee chose to create a new town center. It is a P.U.D. in its truest sense, combining public service space, park space, commercial space and a range of residential types. Read more about it here and here.

The Suwanee Town Center states their vision as “live…work…play…shop.” This is something I would like to emulate in my proposed Sand Hill Farm development. There are differences. The Sand Hill Farm property is approximately 2/3rds the size and I have no vision for Sand Hill Farm to take the place of Downtown Culver. Also, in keeping with the vision presented by the Culver Redevelopment Commission, I would like to keep an option open for a light industrial aspect to the development.

Maxinkuckee Village Preliminary PUD at Plan Commission

August 26, 2008 by

On Tuesday, August 19th, Mr. Gary Aker introduced his plans for Maxinkuckee Village to the Culver Plan Commission. He was assisted by Mr. Allen Collins of CMD Construction and his Attorney, Mr. Fred Jones. This was the first trial of Culver’s revised PUD ordinance. The ordinance was revised last year to add a preliminary concept review by the commission to determine if the developer was on the right track or if the commission had fundimental issues with the proposed development. There are still quite a few requirements at this stage including a site plan, topography map, boundary survey and proof of financial capacity. I watched this with interest as it should be a precursor of what happens with the Sand Hill Farm PUD I am considering.

Sand Hill Farm – Topography

June 26, 2014June 28, 2008 by Kevin Berger

When I bought the 25 acre portion of the site at auction in 2005 there was a discrepancy in the acreage. The property was listed as approximately 28 acres, but in reality it is closer to 25. Fortunately for me the purchase documents were based on a per acre price. I split the cost of a survey with the seller. The savings were more than enough to pay for my half of the metes and bounds survey as well as allowing me to piggy back an aerial topography on top of that! As near as I can tell, the discrepancy in acreage occurred when additional right-of-way was acquired by the State for State Road 17. The County collected property taxes for decades on property that wasn’t taxable…