Tag:The Paddocks
The Paddocks Ribbon Cutting
The ribbon cutting for The Paddocks Apartments in Culver is scheduled for July 24th. We’re working on making this a town event. We have sent out invitation to local civic groups and the Chamber of Commerce is working on recruiting businesses to participate.
The Paddocks is the result of years of local work to solve Culver’s Workforce Housing issue. This began with with citizen input pointing out the need in the last Comprehensive Plan effort. That lead to the creation of a Workforce Housing Committee. From that committee came the research that lead Culver to pursue Stellar designation. The main goal in pursuing Stellar was to qualify for a tax credit set-aside for a Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) project. That project is The Paddocks.
From its construction start to in 2019 to its completion this year, The Paddocks has been observed closely. It has prompted Plymouth and LaPaz to pursue a LIHTC project under Marshall County. This ribbon cutting is the culmination of this.
As we’ve discussed in our invitations, The Paddocks has brought 25 new families to Culver so far. It is up to the rest of Culver’s citizens, businesses and civic groups to make these new residents into community members and good citizens.
Lieutenant Governor Suzanne Crouch will be here to help celebrate the project Part of her duties as Lieutenant Governor is to oversee OCRA and IHCDA. OCRA oversees the Stellar program and IHCDA oversees the tax credit program. L.G. Crouch was here when Culver first achieved Stellar designation, so we’re pleased that she can come back and see the fruits of our labor.
We’re hoping this is an event that is the start of something good for Culver. Those 25 new families have brought 20 new kids to Culver Schools and some of these new residents are already working in local businesses. This is a great opportunity for Culver to come together.
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.
A Sustainable Landscape for The Paddocks
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.
The Paddocks Apartments Progress Article
Jamie Fleury did a nice article on The Paddocks that appeared in the Pilot News and Culver Citizen this past week. As always, we appreciate the press. We continue to get emails from people interested in these apartments so it would appear the need is there. The last I check, there are 15 on the list for when things open up. It’s always good to have that confirmed beyond the market study and the Stellar Committee’s (and before that the Entry Level Housing Committee’s) gut feeling.
The Paddocks, though not known by that name at that time, was the signature project in Culver’s Stellar Communities application in 2016 & 2017. Seeing it come to fruition should be a great boon to Culver and the Town’s efforts to boost our population by providing housing for Culver Community School teachers, Culver Academies staff and ACPI employees.
All the siding is on the first townhome building. As you can see in the above picture, we’re preparing to install the stone veneer accents. Those will be field stone following Culver’s Design Charrette recommendations.
The first building passed it’s NGBS inspection from Energy Diagnostics last week. That’s the outside consulting firm we are using to verify compliance. That allows the first building to move forward with drywall installation next week.
We’ve also been having meetings with Cardno regarding the landscaping. The project will have a sustainable landscape. There will be some limited turf, but there will be other areas with prairie plantings, low-mow fescue and pollinator plantings. We are planning a presentation to the Town since this will fall outside their normal ordinance requirements.
Keep checking here and at the Sand Hill Farm site for updates.
Come to Culver. We have too much stuff!
February 17, 2025
Kevin Berger
Commentary, Culver
Community, Culver, The Paddocks, Trends
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.
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