An early peek inside Autumn Trace

On Monday afternoon I got a early tour of the new Autumn Trace apartments. There will be an open house with guided tours on August 3 from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm and if you have any interest in seeing what they have, I encourage you to go.

The parking lots and the entrance drive are ready to be paved. Weather has delayed this part of the construction and the job is now scheduled for Wednesday.

 When you enter the building, the first room you will see is the reception office/business office. The hallway in the picture below heads to the north.

 You can see the floor plan of the building here, although the locations of the chapel, theater, game room, and cafe have moved from what is shown in that plan. The hallways shown on the plan and the location of the apartments seem to be unchanged. There are three places to dine or eat along the main hallway that leads to the back of the building. One is a private dining room that can be used by residents to entertain guests. It, like the entire building, lacked its furniture on Monday. In the next ten days truckloads of furniture are scheduled to arrive and the furniture should be in place for the open house.

 Next to this small dining room is a much larger dining area where the residents will east almost all of their meals. Meals are included in the basic rental charge for residents.

 The main dining area will have two entrees for each meal and the residents will be asked to choose which they want the day before so the chef can prepare the right amount of food. If neither choice suits a resident, there will be a number of standard options available that are easy to prepare.

Across the hall is an area that will have stoves and refrigerators that the residents can use if they want to cook for themselves. A reason for that might be to entertain family members.

At the west end of the building is a large activity room. Although the individual apartments may seem small to someone used to a house, the residents can use the many common spaces that the facility has.

 Autumn Trace has 44 apartments but only 43 will be rented. One apartment will be kept as a guest room for visits from family. There is only one two-bedroom apartment available and it was rented almost immediately after the project was announced.

Below is the typical shower. The apartments do not have bathtubs. There are multiple grab bars in the bathrooms and they are ADA compliant.

 Each unit has a small kitchenette. The kitchenette has a sink, a mini fridge, and a microwave.

 Below is the view of one of the two courtyards from an apartment.

 One of the common areas will be the theater, which will have a large-screen TV and comfortable seating. The facility will have free wireless Internet for those who want to surf the web or e-mail friends and relatives.

 Each apartment has its own heating/cooling unit. The residents will set the temperature in their room or rooms to whatever they find comfortable.

 There are two laundry rooms. The monthly rent includes laundering of bed and bath linens but residents are responsible for washing their clothing. However, for an extra charge they can have that done as well. The machines will not be coin operated.

 The hallways are wide and spacious. They include nooks that will have chairs or couches.

 At the entrance is a small room with a fireplace. It is another common area and will be useful for meeting visitors.

 At each corner of the building is a screened-in porch that will have wicker furniture. The theater, game room, cafe, and chapel are also on the corners, but they are inside corners. Below is the cafe, which will be open and available around the clock.

 Below is the unfurnished chapel.

 I asked how many of the rooms have been reserved. As of Monday about 40% are reserved. They expect to increase that a bit by the move-in day, which will be August 5. 40% is a higher starting occupancy than the other Autumn Trace apartments have had. Staff includes a nurse, CNAs, a housekeeper, a chef and an assistant chef as well as the executive director. As the apartments fill up, a few more staff will be added.

Also, as the facility fills, it will get a bus for transportation. I asked if there will be trips to the casino and was told that there would be.

We got a quick tour of the kitchen. Below are the stoves and ovens.

 The kitchen has two big freezers and two big refrigerators. One of each is shown below.

Before the grand opening, the facility will have an inspection by the fire marshall. He will make sure that the kitchen and all other parts of the building are up to code.

I asked what happens when a resident's health or mental condition deteriorates and they need more care than assisted living provides. One option is for the family to hire someone to provide that help in the same way that such help can be provided for a person who has remained at home. Obviously another option is to move the person to a nursing home that can provide more intensive care. When the need arises, the executive director and the nurse will consult with the family to advise them on their options.

I plan to revisit on August 3 to see how much is changed. There were many workers putting finishing touches on the building and there will be truckloads of furniture arriving before the grand opening.

Geocaching adventure

Some of our Thanksgiving guests had smart phones that had GPS receivers, and they thought it would be fun to do a little geocaching around Rensselaer. (Geocaching, for anyone who does not know, involves searching for containers based on the GPS coordinates and also any hints that the hider provides. It is a bit like an Easter egg hunt for adults. If you do not have a GPS unit, and I do not think a car GPS unit is sufficient, you cannot take part in the fun. For more info, see the official geocaching site. A few clicks can get you to a map of geocaches in the Rensselaer area.)

Our first search did not  go well. There is supposed to be a small cache in Brookside Park, but when we got to the coordinates of the cache, we could not locate it even using the hints. Our search at second site, in Bicentennial Park, was successful. We found the cache, which is an old army ammo box. It had a register for people to sign and also junk. You can add to the junk if you wish, or you can trade your items for those in the box (unless the directions tell you something different.)

Anyone can register and set up a cache. The folks at the Rensselaer branch of the Jasper County Library have put a tiny cache on the library grounds. It you do not have the coordinates, I doubt that you would ever find it. Even with the coordinates, we looked at the hint before we located it.

A little digression: across the street the gazebo in Hal Gray Park has been decorated with lights and looks very nice at night. However, I had to laugh at the power cord for the lights, which crosses the sidewalk and connects to an outlet on the power pole.

Back to the hunt: we also found two caches that were south of Rensselaer, one on the Saint Joseph's College campus and another to the east of the college. The second one was in a really clever hiding spot--a place that is easily accessible but that will not be bothered or found by someone accidentally.

Have you ever done any geocaching? What did you think of it? My view of Easter egg hunts is that it is more fun to hide than find, and I think the same about geocaching.

A single span Warren deck truss

The Newton County Interim Report, a publication that inventories the historical structures of Newton County, lists a bridge south of Lake Village as a outstanding structure, and because I was passing by recently, I stopped and took a look. I was surprised to find a plaque:

The Conrad Bridge
A single span Warren Deck Truss built by the Elkhart Bridge & Iron Company in 1916 with a clear span of 80 ft.
Entered on the state register of historic places April 26, 1999
Restored 2003
Commissioners: Russell C. Collins, Jr., President
James C. Pistello, Vice President
Matthew V. Gibson
County Auditor: Patricia L. Carlson
Engineer: Beam, Longest & Neff L.L.C.
Contractor: Wirtz & Yates Inc

 What makes the bridge unusual is that the trusses are below the bridge. This is fairly common on railroad bridges, but apparently not on bridges for automobiles.

 

There is a parking pull-off just west of the bridge so you can stop and take a closer look.

The bridge spans a stream that has quite a bit of water in it. It may be the ditch that was used to drain the old Beaver Lake and the wetlands around it--I do not know enough about the area to be sure. If you go all the way under the bridge and look up, you will realize that the decking on the bridge is wood.

You can also learn that by going up on the bridge and looking at it. It is a wooden bridge, or at least partly a wooden bridge.

 

I am impressed that the local government in Newton County preserved this structure rather than tearing it down and replacing it with a bland concrete-slab bridge.

North of CR 700N lies the Conrad Savanna, a nature preserve run by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. I have not explored this preserve, though it sounds interesting.  The area south of the road has No-Trespassing signs on it.

(Conrad Savanna is not to be confused with Conrad Station, run by the Nature Conservancy and east of US 41. The Conrad Station preserve has an interesting treasure in it that will be the subject of another post. The bridge mentioned in the link is our bridge described in this post.)

Thinking about summer

A few weeks ago I visited the Jasper County Fair grounds. In less than four months it will be warm and we will be able to enjoy the fair, maybe the biggest community event that we have.
The winter ice storm had taken its toll of branches, but all remained quiet in the livestock barns.
In July there will be lots of people strolling along the pavement here. Kids will be up early each morning tending their 4-H animals.
There will be food booths selling fair food, and in the afternoons and evenings there will be entertainment on this little stage. I hope I will be able to provide a better look at it this year than I did last year.
In the arena in front of the grandstand are lots of concrete barricades. I wonder what they are all used for.
Over in the horse area is a little cafe that is only open for a week each year. I did not have a need for ice on the day I was there.
The favorite spot for a lot of kids will be the midway with the carnival rides.
This area to the east of one of the horse barns will be filled with trailers, as for a week the fairgrounds becomes Jasper County's fifth largest city. (I do not know for sure that it is only the fifth largest. I am guessing that it never gets as big as Wheatfield.)
Even though I visited the fair grounds early on a cold morning, I was not alone. Someone was busy in one of the exhibition halls, which is used year round for variety of meetings, dinners, and receptions.July will be here before we know it. Time flies.

School playgrounds

In addition to the three park playgrounds that Rensselaer has, there are also three playgrounds associated with schools that are open to the public. Van Rensselaer has a fairly large playground. It is fenced in, but I am confident that the fence is meant to keep the school kids in and off the street, not to keep the public from using the school grounds. (That assumption is based on a lack of fencing at the Monnett School) Columbia Park is only a few blocks away, so the kids in the neighborhood have the choice of two playgrounds.
St. Augustine's School has a small playground prominently marked with warning signs. They realize that they cannot keep area kids away, but they do not want to be sued if the kids have an accident. Of course, if you have an accident on this tiny slide, it probably will not be very serious. (Unless a kid climbed onto the roof and fell from there--but that would not happen with adult supervision, would it?)
There are also some swings and climbing bars. Although it is small, for a lot of people in the center of Rensselaer, this is the closest playground.
The playgrounds by Monnett School are more impressive. You can see Staddon Field just south of these swings. The fact that the park and the school are next to each other make each of them bigger and better than if it were alone.
This set of playground equipment is closer to the school and further from the park. For most people south of the Iroquois River, the Monnett playgrounds are easier to get to than is the playground at Iroquois Park.

Amtrak in the morning

Every morning the Amtrak train stops at the tiny Rensselaer station on its way to Chicago.
Four days a week the train starts in Indianapolis and is called the Hoosier State, and on those mornings the train has only two or three cars. On the day I took these pictures, the train was longer, indicating that it had started in New York and was called the Cardinal.
The train pulled to a stop, the conductor looked around to see if anyone was waiting, and quickly pulled away. (Passengers who are boarding in Rensslaer are supposed to buy their tickes online.)
Away it goes, past the little shelter.
This evening it will be coming back from Chicago, and if you live in Rensselaer and listen carefully, you may hear it.

For rent

I have noticed a number of commercial buildings for rent around Rensselaer, and since I like to take pictures, I began to stop whenever I saw one and take its picture. There are, after all, interesting stories behind each of these empty buildings, though I often am not one of the people who knows what those stories are.

On the north end of town, Sharper Image Salon recently moved out of this building, which was probably a gas station originally. In the not too distant past it was either a pizza place or a Mexican restaurant, or both. What do you remember being here? Is Sharper Image Salon out of business, or did it move?

Across the street is this old gas station, which not too long ago was housing a bridle shop or feed shop of some kind. I did not understand what market they were trying to reach, so I am not surprised that it did not last. Retail is a very risky business with a very high turnover.
The Japser County Interim Report (discussed here) liked this building, which it dates about 1930-36, giving it notable status:

A notable house-and-canopy gas station on the north side of town testifies to the heyday of the [Jackson, now US 231] highway, whose route was significantly eclipsed by the coming of Interstate 65.

Here is a little background on the house-and-canopy style for gas stations from the Internet, and a house-and-canopy style gas station in Illinois with an impressive write up on Wikipedia.
To the east, the old Schumacher factory is still empty.
In the downtown, part of the historic old Horton Building is without a tenant. When I came to town, it housed Dr. Gribble the optometrist. Then for a while it was an antique store, and after its rent was raised and it left, the building served as a tatoo parlor for a while. The building was built in 1902 and is in the style of functional neoclassical, whatever that means.
Also downtown is this nondescript building next to the bank. Most recently it was an antique store, but the owner bought the old Murray building, and decided it gave him enough room so there was no reason to rent his orginal quarters. I think when we came to town this was part of Schultz's Department Store, which went out of business and was replaced by Harvey's. Then I think it was vacant a while. If you have more accurate information, please share it.
Across the street is another empty building that was most recently TJs Unfinished Furniture. Before TJs I think it was Falveys, a clothing store. If you have more information, please share.
Leaving the downtown and going down river, we find the old laundromat on College is empty. When I first came to town there were several laundromats and they were fairly busy. Now I know of none in town. I have not read anything about the demise of the laundromat, but it is a business that has declined as general prosperity has increased. Maybe the rent-to-own businesses were the final nail in its coffin.

The last business in this location was a vacuum cleaner shop called the Ho Ho Vac Shop. I always meant to take a picture of it but never did, and now it is too late. There was also a pool hall somewhere in this building.
Just north of Pizza Hut is another empty laundromat. I do not think anything has been in here for years. There were rumors that the Mexican restaurant that was displaced when CVS built downtown would move here, but it never did.
In the strip mall itself there is currently only one vacancy, an empty spot between American Rental and the Check-to-Go. I think it is an ideal spot for a Starbucks--location, location, location.
My final picture is of the east end of the bowling alley, in the spot formerly occupied by the Kentland Bank, which has moved to its new location. I was hoping to go to its open house, but it was postponed by weather and I missed it.

There are almost always empty commercial buildings. I cannot tell whether there are more than usual this year or not, though nationally vacancies in mall are at a ten-year high. We are in a recession, so we should expect to see more vacancies, but anecdotal evidence is always risky.

Update February 20, 2009: The old Schumacher building has a new tenant, How About That. How About That is the name of a trucking company owned by Ron Kasparian, who is a very recent graduate of SJC. He was unusual as an undergraduate because he already was running a business. Now that he does not have to bother with classes, his business seems to be rapidly growing despite the tough economy. Good luck, Ron.