Friday July 4, 2008

We have made some progress this week on starting the demolition of the building. Doug Wipperman and I met several professionals at the Club on Friday and made some serious headway. The first person we met was David Gleason. He is a long time local builder and has a great reputation. He had taken our floor plan concept and re-worked a few items for flow and ease of construction. While we have not chosen a contractor to start the re-build yet, he will be one of the bidders when we get to that point. It was helpful to get his opinions on several items that we are considering.

The next person that we met was Dennis Svec. Dennis is one of the potential demolition contractors that we are working with and seems to the most willing and able to demo the building in the order that we need. It is an atypical type demolition due to the items that we need to reclaim from the interior, mostly kitchen equipment. He is willing to put everything on pallets for us, wrap it up and move it down the road for a very reasonable price.

Doug had some questions about the foundation of the old building and its ability to support a new structure. This is a big deal, because if we had to replace the existing footings etc, the cost to build would go up tremendously. Thankfully Dennis was there, he called a crew and they were on site in minutes with an excavator. They dug three large holes next to the building to determine the depth and width of the existing foundation. We also had a structural engineer on site (His name escapes me) who cleared the existing foundation for our new use. These are major steps in the right direction. We have started the permitting process for the demolition to proceed.

I also found out that the Zoning Administrator that we had been working with at Elmwood Township is no longer on staff there. What this means I don't know. We'll find out more next week hopefully.

The Hound Dog was a huge success! From what I could tell everyone had a great time. Thanks to everyone that helped pull that off, it was no small undertaking.

Stop down tonight for the fireworks and air show, Sarah's got the bar well stocked and ready to go!

Have a great 4th !

Mac VanStratt
2008 Commodore