Brick Streets Project starts

Ceremonial Groundbreaking

The Brick Streets Project had its ceremonial groundbreaking on Tuesday morning. People involved in the project posed with a shovelful of dirt from plastic buckets.

Before the posed picture, there were short addresses by Mayor Phillips, Emily Albaugh the Community Development Planner for KIRPC, Brandon Schreeg from Kimley Horn, remarks read from State Representative Kendell Culp who is attending the legislative session in Indianapolis, and Stace Pickering from Rensselaer Main Street. KIRPC writes grant applications and administers grants for Rensselaer and Kimley Horn designed the project. Below you can see Ms Albaugh addressing the crowd with Jeff Phillips behind her and former Mayor Wood, former Councilman George Cover, and Stace Pickering in front of the shovels.

There was a decent sized crowd attending.

Here are two sketches of what the completed project will look like.

As part of the project, utilities will be replaced beneath the streets. Also sidewalks will be widened. Here is a sketch showing wider sidewalks and changed parking.

The grant that is funding the project is from the U.S. Economic Development Administration. A requirement is that a percentage of old bricks (I think it is at least 50%) be reused. 

Rensselaer Plan Commission meeting

The Rensselaer Advisory Planning Commission met Thursday afternoon with two items of new business. The first was several zoning changes in the Sunnyside Addition (which is on the northeast side of Rensselaer). They are shown on the map below. Part of one block was changed from I-1 (light industrial) to R1 (residential) because that part of the block consists of residences. The block on which The State Highway Department formerly had buildings and part of another block were changed from R1 to I-1. The reason for the change was again to make the zoning consistent with the way the land is being used. The former State Highway lot has chemical pollution and can not be used for residences. There is currently a warehouse on the lot and another is planned.

The second item was a change of zoning for what used to be a gas station on the Corner of McKinley and Cherry (a bit north of St. Augustine School). The reason the owner wanted the change was that he wants to sell the property and it will be easier to sell with Business zoning. The lot is small and nothing bigger than the existing building can be placed on the lot. Both of the rezones were approved and now need City Council approval to be final.


The next meeting will be on March 21 at 5:30. On the agenda will be a proposal to rezone the Pizza King lot. The business has a variance to have a business in an area zoned residential, but changing the zoning to match what is actually there eliminates the need for the variance.


Rensselaer BZA

The Rensselaer Board of Zoning Appeals meeting was scheduled for an hour after the Plan Commission meeting, and because the Plan Commission meeting lasted half an hour, there was some waiting for it to start. It had only one item on the agenda, a variance for height for a proposed outbuilding and house that will be built on Bunkum Road immediately to the east of the Iroquois Valley Church. (This lot is outside the City limits but in its exclusion zone, so it needs to meet City regulations, not County regulations.) The lot is a wooded lot and the buildings will be set back from the road so will be screened by trees. The current limit on height is 18 feet for outbuildings and 25 for houses. The petitioners want a garage 23 feet tall so it will be able to hold an RV. They were unsure if the house they will build will exceed 25 feet but it may; the plans are not finalized. The variance was granted with the condition that the garage not exceed 25 feet and the house not exceed 30 feet.


Someone asked about the status of the old R&M property. Plans for remodeling or rebuilding are being developed by Hamstra and will need State approval before work begins.

There was discussion of whether the current height limits are realistic, especially for houses in the exclusion zone on lots zoned suburban residential (which must be at least an acre in size.) The Board passed a recommendation to the Plan Commission to review the current height limits.

The next meeting will be on March 21 at 5:30. On the agenda will be a proposal for a conditional use variance for the Good Samaritan Food Pantry, which is moving from its current location on Van Rensselaer and Harrison to the building behind Pizza King.


County Council

The Jasper County Council met on Tuesday evening and because the agenda did not look very interesting, I decided to attend via Zoom. Unfortunately, the audio quality was poor because some of the mics either were not turned on or the speakers were not speaking into them. If the person writing the minutes uses the recording to determine what was said, she will have a challenge.

The Council approved four sets of additional appropriations: for probation secretary and extradition, for road repair (allowing the highway department to spend up to $1 million on chip and seal and road materials), a donation of $75,000 to the Rensselaer Fire Department fire tower (discussed at the last meeting), and about $30,000 to complete repairs at Community Corrections. They then approved a batch of transfers, an amendment to the salary ordinance that dealt mostly with part-time employees, and finally the salary ordinance itself.

There was a discussion of public defenders that I had a hard time following because of poor audio. The County Courts are having a hard time attracting public defenders and may in the future create a public defender department. Compensation is an issue. The budget has funds for seven defenders but there are only six, so the action the Council took was to split the 7th contract among the six active defenders.

The last action of the Council was to fill their slot on the Justice Reinvestment Advisory Council (JRAC). It is a nine member board with the members determined by various offices. The council appoints one member, and last year it was Eric Kidwell, who said that he had a hard time making the meetings because of work conflicts. Nevertheless, he was reappointed with the hopes that the meetings will be Zoomed so he can attend remotely.

Notes

We have had a mild winter this year except for a week in mid January when the temperatures never got above freezing and we had some extremely cold temperatures. At the end of last week we got a reminder that winter is still with us with a couple of inches of snow on Friday and temperatures mostly in the teens on Saturday. You can see the snow on the ground in the picture below of the new fencing around the natural gas regulator station next to McDonalds. The new gas regulators went on-line at the beginning of October.

I missed the meeting at the Fairgrounds that discussed what should be in a new solar ordinance because I attended the Rensselaer BZA and Plan Commission meetings that were held at the same time as the solar meeting. I have not heard anything about what went on at the solar meeting.

I learned a bit more about the phosphorus building pictured in the last post. It does not take phosphorus out of the sewage. Rather it stores chemicals that are added to the sewage and that bind to the phosphorus in the water, helping neutralize it. The State has mandated that Rensselaer (and other communities) add phosphorus control to their sewage plants.

In the previous post I mentioned that the Tourism Commission gave money to Remington Main Street for a mural to be painted this summer. Below is the wall that it will cover. There is a lot of wall and it will be noticed. (The light was all wrong for this picture, but it was the best I could do.)

The Top Link building has a new tenant, 181 Properties. 

The building that previously had Walter's Electric is being remodeled. Some of it will be the future home of Biscuit and a Bath, a dog grooming business north of the railroad on Cullen Street. There are plans to open an ice cream shop in another part.

Jasper County Economic Development has announced that Zyan Miller will be leaving the organization. 

The latest newsletter from Saint Joseph's College is here.

I have not seen any announcements about Lenten Luncheons this year, but a comment on Facebook gave this lineup:

Feb 28th Nazarene Church
Mar 6th Saint Augustine
Mar 13th Trinity United Methodist Church
Mar20th First Christian Church
Mar 27th Brushwood Global Church

Start time seems to be 11:45 with a charge of $6.00.

Some rezoning

And then it was gone

Below are two pictures of the Soesbe Building taken on Wednesday.

On Thursday only a tiny bit of the building remained and it was being torn down.

On Friday morning all that was left was on the ground and being cleaned up.

On the topic of demolition, the Catholic Church in Goodland is being demolished. It was closed after Sacred Heart Church in Remington reopened after being repaired. One priest served Rensselaer, Remington, and Goodland and there were just not enough parishioners in Goodland to keep that parish as a separate entity.

 Rensselaer Plan Commission


The Rensselaer Plan Commission met Thursday evening with both old and new business on their agenda. It approved the ordinance that the Council returned to them with one of the paragraphs deleted. The revised ordinance will again go to the Council for approval. A rezoning request for a property along Melville has been discussed at two previous meetings. At this meeting a new map was presented, rezoning the parts of the block in question that are being used for residences to R1. The map also rezoned several parcels that are being used for industrial to light industrial. Included in the change to light industrial is the block that was previously used by the State Highway Department. It has chemical contamination and cannot be used for housing. The Commission approved the Building Commissioner to proceed with notifying people about the proposal. A public hearing will be necessary before these lots are rezoned.

The first item in new business was a request from Saint Joseph's College to rezone a parcel that includes the parking lot west of the Halleck Center and the former softball field from residential suburban to residential. The major change is that the RS zoning requires one-acre lots and the R1 zoning only 0.17 acres. With RS zoning fewer than 15 houses could be build but the College thinks it can get 28 houses built with the R1 zoning. The College wants to start a building trades program and constructing houses will be part of that program. The College would like to start the program in the fall of 2024. The Commission approved a recommendation of approval to the City Council.

The next rezoning request was for a rezone from R-1 to B-1 (Neighborhood business) for the property that has been Busy Bee. The owner tried to sell the business, but found no buyers and now wants to convert it to a dog-grooming business. To make the new business legal, the property must be rezoned. There will be no additions to the building but the inside will be remodeled. The Commission supported the change in zoning.

There was a short discussion of a petition to vacate the undeveloped parts of Prairie Street, which lies north of the very large warehouse north of Merritt Street between Cullen and Weston Streets. No action was taken at this meeting. There was another short discussion of a proposal to update the Zoning Ordinance and the Subdivision Control Ordinance. Finally, the requirements for membership on the Plan Commission were reviewed. The Council appoints three who are officials or employees of the City and the mayor appoints four citizen members, only two of whom can be from the same political party.


BZA meeting

The main item on the Rensselaer BZA agenda was a conditional use variance for a church building in a B-3 zoning district. The petitioners represent a church of about 150 members that is currently meeting in the Church of the Nazarene. They would like to remodel the former R&M building on Kellner Blvd. They do not know how much, if any, of the current building they will keep; that decision will be made by contractors or people who are engineers or architects. Two people from the DeMotte area who have many years of building experience are supporting their efforts. An area of concern was that applicants for liquor licenses within 600 feet of a church property need church approval. The members of the BZA did not like this requirement so they made one of the conditions for approval of the variance that the church cannot impede liquor business in the R-3 district (which includes all of downtown). The petitioners thought remodeling would take about a year. They have not yet purchased the property; they were waiting for the variance before they bought.

Below is an architect's rendition of what the completed church will look like. It was taken from the handout at the BZA meeting.

The Board then discussed the requirements for membership. No one who is an elected official may serve on the Board, so this was the last meeting for Jeff Rayburn, who will become a member of the City Council in January.


Notes

On the way home from the Rensselaer BZA meeting I stopped in the Library to pick up a book. A meeting of the Republican caucus was just getting out and I saw several people I knew. I asked one who they had selected to replace Bret Risner for the County Council and they told me that they had selected Jacob Misch who lives near Wheatfield.

I took a picture of water-towere construction on Thursday. I was disappointed that this picture is not a lot more different from the one I took two weeks ago. The section of the stem that will be between the base and the top is longer.

The Park Department is putting out new trash cans. Their purchase was approved by the City Council in September.

Sacred Heart Church in Remington, an update

At the end of December in 2020, Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Remington had a fire that, despite being discovered quite early, did extensive damage. A post in April, 2021 showed some of the damage. The parish is now restoring the building and below is a picture of the interior of the church taken on September 18.

Obviously there is a lot of work to be done. For more on the restoring project, see here.

St. Peter and Paul Church, Goodland

A year or two ago the Diocese of Lafayette in Indiana combined many of its parishes into groups called pastorates.  The Saint Augustine parish in Rensselaer was combined with the The Sacred Heart of Jesus parish in Remington and the Saints Peter and Paul parish in Goodland to form the St. Michael the Archangel pastorate. One priest serves all three parishes. The church building in Remington had a fire and the repairing of the building is not yet complete, so Sunday services are currently held in Goodland and Rensselaer. 

I visited the church recently and took some pictures. St. Peter and Paul looks like hundreds of other small Catholic churchs in America. It was built in 1902.

 Below is a look at the inside.

The altar piece is ornate with large statues of the Holy Family flanked by Sts. Peter and Paul. 

Few churches have stations of the Cross as large as these.

The stained-glass windows are rather plain but do let in a lot of light.

The parish is the smallest of the three in the pastorate.

Hope you had a Merry Christmas.

Viewing the fire damage at Sacred Heart Church in Remington

 On December 28, 2020 a fire damaged Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Remington. The church had an alarm that notified the fire department while the fire was still small and, as a result, the Reminton Fire Department was able to put out the fire before it totally destroyed the building. Nevertheless, there was a lot of damage and there are no church services being offered at the building. The parishioners can go to Goodland for Sunday Mass.

On Sunday, April 18, the public was allowed into the basement of the building to see its current state. Part of the ceiling of the basement, or alternatively, part of the floor of the church's nave, have been removed so that one could look up into the church.

The fire started on the south side of the church beneath the floor, and the part of the floor that has been removed is the section where the fire started. You can see that a lot of plaster has been removed, both in the basement and in the nave. Fortunately, it does not appear that the stained glass windows were damaged. The walls appear to have been stained by the smoke.

Below is the view of the choir loft from the basement.

Below is a view that shows that plaster was removed from the length of the south wall. It is still not clear how much more plaster will have to be removed.

Below is the edge of the the floor that remains. The wood was singed but appears to be structually sound.

I had never been in the basement but was told that it had been chopped up into small rooms. It appears that the small rooms are being rebuilt.

The picture below shows the inside of a basement door. You can see how the heat of the fire blistered the paint.

For pictures of the church before the fire, see here and here.

The Blacker Fields hosted its second tournament this weekend. I noticed that teams playing in the northwest field seemed much smaller than the teams playing in Roth Field, so I searched to see if I could find a list of teams participating. I found it on the website of the organization that organizes the tournaments. There were three different age groups, 13 and under, 12 and under, and 11 and under. Teams in the 13u group were from Valapraiso, Crown Point, Kouts, Chesterton, and two from Lafayette. The 12u group had teams from Kouts, Porter, Frankfort, Bourbonnais, IL, Greenfield, and South Bend. The 11u had teams from Valpariso, Indianapolis, and two from Crown Point.

The fans had really good weather, unlike last weekend. Concessions were being sold by Team Mission Jasper County. While I was there, I saw someone hit a home run.  Also, I wonder if part of the parking problem is due to the lack of asphalt and thus painted lines showing where people should park.

The forecast says we will have a cold start to the week with frost on Tuesday and Wednesday. I hope it does not damage the fruit crop again this year.

The Rensselaer Board of Zoning Appeals met Tueday evening to consider a conditional use application (which is what the County BZA calls a special exception) for an event barn on CR 1000 W across from Wilson's Fertilizer. That is not in City limits, but it is within the two-mile buffer zone. The barn is 85% complete and is 40 feet by 60 feet. It has a kitchen and bathrooms and is designed to host events of up to 100-125 people. It will have parking for 60-70 cars. The application was approved.

How long has Moonshiners been closed? 

A food truck plans to visit Rensselaer every Friday. It will set up in the parking lot of the bowling alley. Its Facebook page is here. 

Pizza Hut is getting a new roof.

A small building that was once part of the VanTobel lumber yard has been removed and the view of the rest of the building is now completely different.

Gravestone art in Mt Calvary Cemetery

Recently this blog had a post on tombstone art in Weston Cemetery. I thought it would be interesting to compare the art shown there to what is in Mount Calvary Cemetery. The art is much different, although there is some convergence on recent gravestones. There are at least two reasons for the differences. First, Weston has older burials and much of the iconography on the early graves was disappearing as the 20th century approached.  Second, Catholics have their own set of iconography.

There are few crosses on older graves in Weston but they are everywhere in Mount Calvary. There are also some that have the rosary, a distinctive Catholic devotion. 

Below is another cross with a rosary.

Praying hands are not particularly Catholic, but they are on a more recent marker and the addition of the cross makes the image seem more Catholic.

The IHS is common in Catholic art. It represents the first three letters of the word "Jesus" in Greek. The lily has several meanings, including innocence and purity, but I suspect on this stone it is meant to symbolize resurrection.

Ivy is not unique to Catholic grave markers. It can be found as often in Weston as in Mount Calvary. It often is used to represent immortality.

I was surprised to learn that the woman clinging to the cross is often found in Southern cemeteries, where it is supposed to symbolize faith. This is a marker from 1904 for a young man.

The vessel or urn with a flame is also in many non-Catholic cemeteries. The flame sometimes represents eternity.

This seems to be a picture of a stained glass window. I think the cross is the symbolic element in this unusual design.

The Agony in the Garden scene on this grave is one of the more elaborate decorations in Mount Calvary.

The wreath or garland (which I think this is) is a symbol of victory or passage to eternal life.

I had not found any canna lilies in Weston Cemetery, so I was surprised to find this image in Mount Calvary. They have several symbolic meanings, including resurrection and rebirth.

There are many urns in Weston Cemetery, but there they are usually the top piece of the the marker, not art on the marker. The urn is a funeral urn and is supposed to represent immorality.

The dove in this decoration probably represents the Holy Spirit, usually represented as a dove in Christian art.

Grapes and grape leaves can be a symbol of Christian faith.

At one time most grave art was hand carved. That was almost entirely replaced with sandblasting with a stencil.  A recent innovation is to use lasers that can copy photographs onto grave markers. Laser etching is becoming common on recent markers, including those in Weston and Mount Calvary Cemeteries. 

Laser etching or engraving is changing tombstone art. Symbolism is being replaced with images personal to the life of the deceased.

The picture below has me stumped. I cannot figure out what the symbolism is supposed to be in this image. Did the deceased work on the railroad?

;-)

(This past weekend I received a comment on an old post that reminded me that ten years ago I had written about symbolism in graveyard art.  See my post about North Star Cemetery in 2010.)

One more for the alley

I noticed something new in aerial shots that Discover Jasper County posted on Facebook so I took a closer look. There is a new mural on the eMbers building.

Moosy is the signature of Trent Musch. I will have to update my Art Walk pages.

On Monday work continued on US 231 as the side street approaches to the highway were paved.

The Webster Street crossing of the railroad is closed. The railroad is doing something with the switch tracks.

Work continues on a new house in Blacker Village. It is sponsored by the Fuller Center for Housing.

A bit to the north the new storage building now has a back wall but still no roof (at least when the picture was taken last week).

Several churches are changing or have recently changed pastors. Included are the United Methodists, First Presbyterians, the Bridge, and Saint Augustine. The change at Saint Augustine marks the end of an era. Since 1888 priests from the Missionaries of the Precious Blood, the order that sponsored Saint Joseph's College, have served the parish. No longer. The new pastor is a diocesan priest. Moreover, he will not just be the pastor of Saint Augustine's but also the Catholic parishes in Remington and Goodland. Until this spring the parishioners of Saint Augustine have had the luxury of three Masses on the weekends. Now they will have only one, on Sunday. The new pastor is currently living in the rectory in Remington's Sacred Heart parish.

On Monday afternoon the Rensselaer Redevelopment Commission resumed its meeting from the previous Monday. Last week they had concerns and questions about the contract with the engineering firm that was needed for a grant application. These questions were answered. The City will own the work of the engineering firm when it is finished but not when it is only partially finished. The amounts listed in the contract as payments for engineering services are caps. With those issues resolved, the Commission approved signing the contract and KIRPC will submit the grant proposal. If approved, it will help fund stage one of downtown redevelopment, which will include re-bricking the two blocks of brick streets by the Court House.

On Monday evening both the Jasper County BZA and Plan Commission met via Zoom. The case in front of the BZA consisted of a special exception for a cell tower and two variances for the tower, one for height and the other for type. The proposed tower will be constructed on a forty acre track on the southwest corner of the SR 110 and US 231 intersection in Walker Township. The tower and its support structure will occupy only a 100-foot by 100-foot area. The tower will be 285 feet tall with and extra five feet for a lightning rod. Verizon will occupy the top slot for its calls and will lease three co-locations to other cell carriers. Cell phone towers are tightly regulated by the FCC and the FAA and the FAA will require warning lights on the tower. The advantage of the tower is that it will increase capacity and coverage in the area. The special exception passed as well as the two variances. The tower will be a lattice tower and will not have guy wires. (See here for types of towers.)

The Plan Commission had a rezone request from Milroy Township. The property is currently A1 and the request was A2. The property in question is weirdly shaped with a lot of acreage but a small frontage and I think the rezone was needed to allow a dwelling to built on it. It passed and will move on to the Commissioners.