Office space

On Saturday I was downtown trying to find the last window paintings when I received an invitation to look inside the former County Annex/REMC building to see how the remodeling was proceeding. The building is large, with 11,000 square feet. The County decided to sell it when it considered the cost of replacing the heating and cooling systems and had the opportunity to purchase the former PNC Bank building.

Four brothers who bought the building are doing most of the remodeling. Two work in construction. The remodeling of the southestern part of the building is furthest along and it will be a co-working space, offering short-term rentals. Below is a conference room that will be available for meetings.

Most of the rest of the co-working space is along a hallway. 

Here is one of the almost finished offices.

And another office. There are two restrooms along the hallway.

There is also this partially completed kitchen.

At the back of the building with its own entrance is an office for a company called Loink. It sells hard-to-find items for surveyors, engineers, architechts, and contractors. The website is here and you can see that it has the address of this office. Perhaps I will be able to learn a lot more when the building has its ribbon cutting.

The northwestern part of the building is a maze. This part of the building will be for long-term offices and retail. The remodeling here will not be finished until tenants are found. Then the space will be remodeled to suit their needs. I was surprised to find the remains of an old court room in this part of the building. I do not remember how many years ago it was, but for a few years Jasper County had three courts, and the third court was here. Since then this former court room has been subdivided into several rooms.

The building has two boiler rooms. One is shown below.

One of the rooms has a large vault. 

Sometime in the next few months the co-working part of the building will be opened and after that a ribbon cutting is planned. I look forward to seeing how much has changed by then.

Plan Commission and BZA meetings

The Rensselaer Plan Commission met Monday evening. Their first action was to appoint one of their members as the Commission's representative on the BZA. Dave Webb was chosen.

Their first cause was a rezone from A1 to A2 for a parcel of a large property in Union Township. The owners want to split off the house from the agricultural land and with an A1 zoning they would need to split off ten acres but with an A2 zoning only two. The Commission approved and sent the matter to the Commissioners for final approval. 

The second item on their agenda was to approve a two-lot subdivision in Keener Township. The 4.5 acre property had a house built in the 1940. In the 1970s a new house was built and the old house was converted to a workshop. Recently the owners decided to convert the workshop back into a house for one of their fathers. After a lot of work was done, they discovered that this would violate zoning and were trying to get into compliance with the ordinance. They received approval for the two-lot subdivision but then they needed a couple variances approved at the BZA meeting that followed, one variance for lot width and another for lot size. These were also approved. Before the Plan Commission meeting adjourned, it heard from some people who are interested in bike/walking trails in the northern part of the County. They would like to be able to get grants to help fund trails, but they need some acknowledgement of trails in County documents. 

The second item for the BZA meeting that followed was a variance for a rear-yard setback. The owners had recently purchased a six-acre property with an existing foundation that they would like to use. It was installed about ten years ago but the house was never built. Unfortunately, a corner of the foundation is only 15 feet from the property line, not the required 30 feet. The neighboring land is farmland and the farm owner had no problem with building on the foundation. The variance was approved.

County Council meeting

The Jasper County Council had a short meeting on Tuesday evening. It began with the Council appointing one of its members, Eric Kidwell, to a new council, the Justice Reinvestment Advisory Council. It will consist of several persons involved in law enforcement and the judiciary and needs a member of the County Council. It then approved two additional appropriations that had been discussed at the previous Council meeting. One was for new server equipment for the County and the other was for the Tourism capital projects fund.

They approved a transfer associated with the new EMS building and then approved nine amendments to the salary ordinance. These had apparently been approved at the previous meeting but for some reason were not correct. One of the council members expressed gratitude for all that Brian Overstreet had contributed in his years with the Extension Office.

Other things

A contractor has been busy the past week or two installing a sewer along West Washington Street. Last week they were installing something north of the road. I asked the flagman what it was and he did not know.

The Airport is advertising for an assistant airport manager.

Trees are starting to leaf out and the redbud trees are blooming. However, we did have a frost a couple mornings this week.

Below is a picture of the quarry taken Wednesday. You may be able to see the very top of the roof of a small building that was evident in earlier pictures, such as the one from last July.

The Catholic Church in Remington will re-open soon and when it does, the Catholic Church at Goodland will be closed and the parish will be merged with the Remington parish. Over the years the parish in Goodland has shrunk and is no longer financially viable. 

Window paintings, part 4

The window painting in the downtown is finished. One of the last paintings is also one of the best. It is on the First Merchants Bank.

City Hall has some flowers.

I think I have them all but would not be surprised if I missed one or two.