Tag: smokestack

$500 “goodwill gesture” goes to Johnson’s Creamery smokestack owner from Bloomington historic group

On Thursday, Peerless Development received a $500 grant award from Bloomington’s historic preservation commission (HPC)—in connection with an engineering study that found the Johnson’s Creamery smokestack to be structurally unsound.

B Square file photo of Johnson’s Creamery smokestack in the first half of 2022.

Peerless owns the historic smokestack, along with the creamery building, which is located off 7th Street on the B Line Trail. Earlier this year, the city council designated the building as a historic district.

Peerless is currently looking at a cost of around $350,000 to partly demolish the smokestack and another $250,000, which mayor John Hamilton’s administration wants the developer to contribute towards commemorative art for the smokestack.

The city of Bloomington has ordered Peerless to reduce the height of the smokestack from 140 feet to 60 feet.

Compared to the half million dollars in smokestack-related costs Peerless might be facing, the size of the HPC’s grant is small.

But as HPC member Sam DeSollar put it, “I think it’s a goodwill gesture.” Peerless has had to spend “a bucket of money” to figure out how to deal with the smokestack and its unsafe lean, DeSollar said. “I won’t feel guilty about defraying their costs by $500.” He added, “And we’re going to have to work with these folks in the future on what happens with this—so I’m going to support this.”

Dissenting on the vote was Matthew Seddon, who said the cost of the Arsee Engineers report was definitely within the guidelines for the grant, which talks about consulting fees. But the guidelines for the HPC grants say the consulting fees are supposed to be associated with the rehabilitation of a historic property. From Seddon’s perspective, the project was not about rehabilitation: “These guys are taking the thing down!” Continue reading “$500 “goodwill gesture” goes to Johnson’s Creamery smokestack owner from Bloomington historic group” →

Historic smokestack owner gets $20K from Bloomington enterprise group, none yet from HPC

Bloomington’s urban enterprise association (BUEA) voted unanimously on Wednesday to award Peerless Development a $20,000 grant.

Closeup of Johnson’s Creamery smokestack.

The grant was  awarded in connection with demolition of the Johnson’s Creamery historic smokestack from 140 feet to 60 feet.

The real estate developer has been ordered by the city of Bloomington to reduce the smokestack’s height due to its unsafe lean, as determined by a study done by Arsee Engineers.

In addition to the demolition work, Peerless described the project in its BUEA grant application as including the repair of the remaining exterior to replace missing mortar joints and to fill cracks with new, sound materials.

The amount Peerless requested in the application was $50,000. The estimated cost of the demolition is pegged at around $350,000. The $50,000 was five times the limit for any one application.

The BUEA’s documentation of facade grants says “The grant may be up to $10,000 per application.”

The $20,000 awarded by the BUEA is twice the amount of the application limit, but matches the limit for one organization in any calendar year.

A week earlier, Bloomington’s historic preservation commission (HPC) had been asked to award Peerless $500 under its consulting grant program.

HPC members put off a vote, asking for additional details. Continue reading “Historic smokestack owner gets $20K from Bloomington enterprise group, none yet from HPC” →

Bloomington city council decision on Johnson’s Creamery alley vacation to wait until June 15

Schematic of alley vacation request by Peerless Development.
View of parcel from east to west from Monroe County’s online property lookup system.
View of the Johnson’s Creamery smokestack from the east.

At its regular meeting on Wednesday (June 1), Bloomington’s city council postponed a vote on a request from Peerless Development to vacate an east-west alley that cuts across the parcel where the Johnson’s Creamery building sits.

Vacating the alley means ceding to private ownership some land that is now public right-of-way. The vote to postpone a vote until June 15 was unanimous. That’s the last regular meeting before the council’s summer recess.

The alley vacation would be needed in order for Peerless to move ahead with a development on the northern part of the parcel. The housing development is supposed to include 51 apartments right next to the B-Line Trail, off 7th Street. Bloomington’s plan commission approved the site plan for the new development in October 2021.

But that approval was contingent on getting a greenlight from the city council for the vacation of the east-west alley—because part of the proposed new building would sit in the right-of-way. Continue reading “Bloomington city council decision on Johnson’s Creamery alley vacation to wait until June 15” →

No decisions yet on Johnson’s Creamery smokestack

This photo is from the Arsee Engineers report showing the lean of the Johnson’s Creamery smokestack to the southeast.
Historic district commissioner Reynard Cross at the March 24, 2022 meeting of Bloomington’s historic district preservation commission.

[This article focuses on the procedural issues that have led to the current state of affairs. Namely, neither the Bloomington city council nor the historic preservation commission has taken action, yet.]

If things had unfolded differently on Wednesday, the Bloomington city council could have enacted a historic district for the Johnson’s Creamery building.

And on Thursday, the historic district commission (HPC) could have approved a certificate of appropriateness for the demolition of the former creamery’s smokestack down to 60 feet. The current smokestack, which was built in 1949, is now 140 feet tall.

Neither the city council nor the historic preservation commission took action this week. Continue reading “No decisions yet on Johnson’s Creamery smokestack” →

Future of Johnson’s Creamery smokestack height to be decided by historic preservation commission, Bloomington city council

A photo looking up the southeast face of the stack from the Arsee Engineers report.
A photo from the Indiana Spatial Data Portal showing the 200-foot smokestack that was demolished sometime after 1949 and the current 140-foot smokestack, which was constructed in 1949.
From the Arsee Engineers March 1, 2022 study, a recent photograph of the Johnson’s Creamery smokestack with diagram showing where it could fall.

As soon as this Thursday (March 24), the future of the iconic Johnson’s Creamery smokestack, just across the B-Line Trail west of city hall, could be settled.

That’s when Bloomington’s historic preservation commission (HPC) is scheduled to meet and act on a request from the owner of the Johnson’s Creamery building to reduce the height of the smokestack from 140 to 60 feet, and to stabilize the remaining, shorter smokestack.

The leaning and deteriorating smokestack is the subject of an unsafe building order issued by the city of Bloomington in late December 2021. The city’s housing and neighborhood development department (HAND) ordered the smokestack repaired within 60 days.

[Added at 9:35 a.m. on March 23: A current order that was issued by HAND on March 11 says the owner has to demolish the smokestack down to a height of 60 feet.]

But on Thursday, the HPCs granting of a certificate of appropriateness for partial demolition is not guaranteed. And it would require some coordination with potential city council action on Wednesday.

Before the request for a “certificate of appropriateness” can be granted by the HPC, Bloomington’s city council would need to establish the legal framework for the issuance of such a certificate. That framework would come in the form of a one-building local historic district.

That’s why an ordinance to establish the Johnson’s Creamery Historic District is on the city council’s Wednesday (March 23) agenda. Ordinarily, the enactment of any ordinance requires two separate readings, not on the same day or the same meeting. But if there is unanimous consent among councilmembers, an ordinance can be enacted at the same meeting when it is introduced. Continue reading “Future of Johnson’s Creamery smokestack height to be decided by historic preservation commission, Bloomington city council” →

City of Bloomington: Unsafe building order for Johnson’s Creamery smokestack, section of B-Line Trail to be closed

Looking east around 8 a.m. on Jan. 13, 2022 towards the Johnson’s Creamery smokestack.

In a news release issued early Thursday morning, the city of Bloomington announced that it has issued an “Unsafe Building Order to Repair” to the owners of the the old Johnson’s Creamery building on 7th Street, across the B-Line Trail from city hall.

The building is owned by Peerless Capital of Chicago, Illinois. It’s the site of planned new housing construction that would incorporate the existing structure. According to the news release, the unsafe order was issued under city code  and state statue.

The reason for the unsafe building order, according to Thursday’s news release, is the 140-foot-tall smokestack, which is located on the property. The iconic smokestack has vertical lettering that reads “Johnson’s” on its east side.

The B-Line Trail, where it passes between city hall and the Johnson’s Creamery building, will be closed off, according to the news release. As of around 8 a.m. Thursday morning, the B-Line was still open. [Updated 2:53 p.m. on Jan. 13, 2022: The latest word from the city is that as of around 11 a.m. the fencing has been installed.] Continue reading “City of Bloomington: Unsafe building order for Johnson’s Creamery smokestack, section of B-Line Trail to be closed” →