Odds and ends, end of June 2017

A few  items I have noticed:

Fenwick Farms Brewing Company has a Facebook page and it has pictures of the various stages of their construction. It appears that they have successfully brewed the first batch of beer. They are hiring.

Cooper Tire and CTS Tire Service have new ownership, Wonderland Tire. Customers should not notice any changes.

The blueberry farms in northern Jasper County are open for business.

Fairmeadow Home Health Center is downsizing and moving.

I was in White County on Tuesday and noticed that the old White County poor farm, which was an impressive structure, was mostly demolished. I mentioned the sale here but a post here has more information, especially in the recent comments.

Back in Rensselaer the asphalt for the Marathon station by the tracks is in place and on Tuesday a crew was painting markings. There will be three pumps so six cars can fuel at one time.

On other gas station news, the Speedway Gas project planned for SR 10 east of I-65 went before the JC BZA on Monday evening for an exception and variances. The exception was needed because there is no zoning that allows commercial fueling, that is, fueling for trucks. The zoning of the lot does allow gas stations. The only real concern voiced was about traffic. The station will have entrances both on SR 10 and CR 1100 and both roads are congested in the early morning when hundreds of residents rush for the interstate to commute to work. The variances were for three purposes. The station wants a sign 120 feet tall, which is what the two truck stops to the west have. The county plan only allows signs to be 60 feet. The county plan has a maximum size set for entrances and exits and Speedway said that they needed wider entrances to get trucks in and out safely. Finally, the code says that for what they have designed, they need 53 parking spaces and they wanted only 49. After about an hour of discussion, all the changes were granted.

The project went before the Drainage Board earlier this month but the Commissioners wanted changes so the revised plans will be presented at the July 3 Drainage Board meeting.

The station will have eight auto fueling lanes and 4 commercial lanes. It will have a cafe with limited food but will not be a full truck stop. The representative from Speedway said that most of the trucks that stations like this get are independent owner-operators who want to fuel up, grab a snack, and get back on the road. He said the company thought there was enough demand to warrant spending the money to construct the station. It will employ 15 to 20. The construction will increase the width of both SR 10 and CR 1100 in the area of the proposed station.

Before the BZA meeting the Plan Commission met briefly to discuss a rezone. A lady from the northern part of the county wanted to split a house from a barn to make it easier to sell, but she did not bring the newspaper notice with her and it was not clear that it had been published in the right place. The item was continued to the July meeting. In her case the paper may have led her down the wrong path--it told her to publish the notice in the DeMotte paper rather than the Rensselaer Republican, which is where the notice must be. I feel sorry for those who run into the County regulations for the first time--there are a lot of rules that have to be followed.

(The answer to the last post: the actor playing Dr. Frankenstein was Augustus Phillips who was born in Rensselaer.)