First flowers

I was surprised to see a lawn full of crocuses on Sunday. They are the first flowers I have seen in Rensselaer this spring.

 The Walmart snow pile is still there and still melting.

 The solar farm is different from the last time I was there. There is some kind of structure in the front--I saw the concrete being poured a week or two ago.

 What surprised me was how many of the solar panels were in place. On the west side it appeared all the the panels were installed, and there were about 24 rows of them. However, the rows did not go all the way to the east. On the east side the posts were in place, but the panels were still in piles. If you look carefully at the picture above, you can see the solar panels to the left of the concrete structure and to the left you can see the forest of poles.

Below is what the lot looks like from the west looking east.

Update: Some asked on an older post where the solar panel farm was. It is at the far east end of Maple Street, east of the State Highway offices.

A grand opening

Precision Glass and Auto Brite had a grand opening today (Saturday). I thought it a bit strange because Precision Glass has been around for a while (I think 18 years), but it now has a new owner. The new owner also has purchased the Auto Brite business that was in the same building and that has been in Rensselaer for 25 years.

 Precision Glass handles all types of glass--automobile windows and windshields, glass for commercial buildings, glass for residential housing, shower glass, and more. There is not much to photograph at the business because they keep virtually no inventory of glass. Instead they order as needed and get it within two days.

The grand opening featured lunch with meat from Dales. I was there early and there were not many other people, but when I drove past later attendance seemed to have picked up.

 It is hard to see in the picture above, but there was also a display of items from Electronic Systems Group from Lafayette. I asked about the connection and was told that there is cross promotion. People who need new glass fairly often are also interested in better security systems and vise versa.

Precision Glass has a Facebook page with more pictures from the grand opening, including one of the band Once Ascended that was a featured attraction.

Also today Ardent Papers Photography had an open house. It was quieter, with no band.

Meanwhile, across the highway from Precision Glass the concrete slab for the new Dollar General store was being poured. I was too late to see them using the boom truck to get the concrete to the back of the pad, but I enjoyed watching the guy riding on the little machine that smooths the concrete.

In a couple weeks SR 114 will be closed to replace the culvert by Brookside Park. I am sure lots of people will miss the garbage trucks.

On Monday evening the Park Board will hold their monthly meeting at 6:00 in the old school corporation administration building. If you are one of the people who wants to see what the building looks like inside, this is your chance. You can also see what a Park Board meeting is like.

Construction bits April 3, 2014

It has been a slow week as far as finding things to write about for this blog though I have been busy with other things. I found some time to start getting some plants started indoors for transplanting later in the garden and I have noticed a few house repairs I need to make. It was hard to think about those things when there was snow on the ground. There still is some snow in Rensselaer. Yesterday (Tuesday) morning the pile in the Walmart parking lot was still five or six feet tall. The early morning rain today should be cutting it down in size considerably.

Workers were doing something to the roof of the chapel at SJC.

Work continues on the substation by the power plant.

Across the street, the Rensselaer Library is almost back to normal. Carpeting has been installed in their back office space and the staff is moving back from the conference room. As of yesterday, there was still a bit of carpet that needed to be installed behind the circulation desk.

A lot of work is going on at the Dollar General construction site. On the evening of April 1 a sand bed had been laid down and some concrete poured for footings.

Less than 24 hours later crushed limestone had been put on top of that and forms were in place for further concrete pours.

Lots of dump trucks have come and gone, delivering stone, sand, or crushed stone.

There is a sign on SR 114 saying that the highway will be closed on or after April 7 (correction April 17). I am not sure why--perhaps it is for replacement of the culvert for the creek.

The new hair salon downtown is now open.

Fair Oaks Farms shared some pictures of work inside their restaurant here.

Moving dirt for Dollar General (Updated)

Dirt is being moved for a new Dollar General store on the corner of Clark and Monroe Streets. (That is directly east of Kirby Risk. For some reason I expected this store to go to the west of Kirby Risk, but I like the actual site better.) It appears that most of the work being done is for the parking lot--two trucks full of stone showed up during the few minutes I was there. Also, you can see that the entrance way from the highway has been constructed. I am not sure when work began, but it appear that at least a week has passed since construction began.

 There is an ad on the Internet for a store manager that was posted at the end of February.

Dollar General is not new to Rensselaer--it had a store in the building that now houses 24/7 Fitness that closed about ten years ago. In the past few years, Dollar General has opened stores in Remington and Monon. The Rensselaer Republican had an article about the future Dollar General store last week that said the store would hire six to nine people.

About a mile due north of the Dollar General construction site, another construction project has been completed. Not only does the new rail crossing on 400S have lights, it also has a crossing gate.

A few other things: when I was in Remington about a week ago, I noticed that the plant across from the Bank of Wolcott office had DuPont signs on it. I remembered it as a Solae plant. Checking the Internet, I learned that Solae had been a joint venture between DuPont and another company, and in 2012 DuPont bought out the ownership of the other company so now the entire company is owned by DuPont.

Rensselaer may be too small to establish a presence on Craigs List, but people have found a way to use Facebook for the same purposes. If you want to buy and sell items in Rensselaer, check out the Facebook group, For Sale in Rensselaer Indiana. It has over 1000 members. There are several other groups that seem to be doing the same thing, such as Jasper County(Indiana)...Buy-Sell-Trade-or GiveAway, which has 2500 members.

Update: I stopped by the Dollar General site after 6:00 pm and was surprised at how much had been done and that there were still men at work. Sand was being smoothed, presumably to get ready for a concrete pad on which the building will rest. The side of Monroe had been completely broken up, probably by the large dump trucks delivering stone and sand.

 At the north end of the lot a truck load or two of drainage tiles had been delivered. It will be interesting to see where they go.

This will probably be a pretty fast build. Expect future updates on progress.

A ribbon cutting

Yesterday the Chamber of Commerce had a ribbon cutting for the Laird Fitness Center at CDC Resources. Below you can see people getting ready for the cutting--the Rensselaer Republican should have a picture of the actual cutting and that will be one more person in the picture.

Below is the press release for the event:

CDC Resources' current Rensselaer facility at 1320 E Angelica Street would not exist if it were not for the late Wallace Laird. When CDC sought to improve its services in the 1970s with a new building, Laird, who served on the CDC Board of Directors and as President of that Board, arranged a land swap that gave CDC it’s four acre campus on the east end of Angelica. Before its new building was completed in 1979, CDC had provided services from several locations, including from the old Jordan School on SR16 and the former Rensselaer HS. The naming of the new fitness center at the Rensselaer office in honor of Wallace Laird is in recognition of the key role he played at a crucial juncture of CDC's history.

The Laird Fitness Center provides CDC consumers easy access to common fitness center equipment. Many of these consumers get little exercise in their daily lives and consequently suffer the health consequences of inactive lifestyles. The Laird Fitness center includes common fitness center equipment, including steppers and treadmills, built to commercial standards. The equipping of the Center was funded by grants from the Newton County Community Foundation, Jasper Foundation and Jasper County REMC.

CDC Resources provides services to intellectually and developmentally disabled adults in five area counties. The Rensselaer facility on Angelica Street serves over 230 individuals from Jasper, Newton, and Benton counties. Day Services, which occupies over half of the building, combines contract work for area industrial customers with training on daily living skills and recreational activities. The building also houses Heartland Employment Services to assist individuals with disabilities to get and retain community jobs, accomodates Community Waiver/Respite Services staff who support individuals in the community as well as the management team for maintaining two Rest Parks on I-65 for the state.

A ribbon cutting for the Laird Fitness Center will take place this Thursday, March 27 at noon (CDT) at CDC Resources Center at 1320 E. Angelica Street in Rensselaer. Refreshments will be served and tours of the center will be available. Join us for the dedication of an exciting new program development named in honor of a man who made a difference.

 I knew Wally Laird largely because he taught a few in economics classes at SJC when the department was short staffed. He was a person for whom first impressions were deceiving. It took a while to realize how much he did and how involved he was in a great many activities and endeavors.

CDC Resources has now has more likes on Facebook (681) than Rensselaer Adventures (680). Not too long ago they were 100 likes behind. However, Rensselaer Adventures is three ahead of the Greater Rensselaer Chamber of Commerce (677).

In other news, Thursday's Rensselaer Republican report on a house fire caught my attention because the address--706 Milroy--was my address for the 1974-75 school year, the first year I was in Rensselaer. The damage was not visible from Milroy Street, but the paper reported that the kitchen area was a total loss and the rest of the house had heat and smoke damage.