GREENFIELD — Dan Van Treese was coming out of a doctor’s appointment this past winter when he noticed a sign saying a new car wash was coming to a property in the 1700 block of North State Street.
The Indianapolis businessman couldn’t help but notice there was a perfectly good office building on the site. Having formerly moved buildings for a living, he got an idea.
Several months later, the building is now off its foundation and atop an arrangement of steal beams and hydraulic jacks. Soon, a network of integrated dollies will take the structure down the block and around the corner, where it will be part of a larger planned business development.
The building formerly housed F.C. Tucker Company’s Greenfield real estate office, which finished moving into its new location at 928 N. State St. last month. Work on a new Crew Carwash will begin after the building is moved.
After his doctor’s appointment, Van Treese and his wife, Joyce, visited Greenfield to look at available sites and consider potential routes for getting the two-story, approximately 70-by-68-foot building there. When they came to the empty lot at 1615 Fields Boulevard, Van Treese saw a sign for local RE/MAX agent Mark Dudley, with whom he’s worked in the past.
“I knew Mark would fight for me in order to do my project because he knew my background of moving buildings,” Van Treese said.
Not long after that, he reached out to Crew Carwash about his idea, and eventually received the go-ahead to move the building.
“It was very well built,” Van Treese said of the structure, which was constructed in 1997.
He and his longtime business partner, Keith Matthews, have enlisted the services of Wolfe House & Building Movers, a company based in Bernville, Pennsylvania, with outlets across the country, including northern Indiana.
“They’re pros,” Van Treese said. “They got the really nice equipment.”
Devin Hirt, an estimator with Wolfe’s Indiana team, said jobs generally begin by digging and trenching under buildings to get a system of steel I-beams, hydraulic jacks and cribbing blocks underneath to raise the structure. Once it’s ready to go, dollies will be added that are coordinated together and steered remotely via Wolfe’s patented technology.
“It’s a really good system,” Hirt said. “We don’t pull it with a truck. It’s smooth. There’s no jerking motion, just a smooth move.”
The contractor will slowly roll the approximately 800,000-pound building about 700 feet south down State Street before turning west onto West McClarnon Drive and on to the destination off Fields Boulevard, where it will be set on its new foundation. The job is slated for 2 a.m., so as not to disturb traffic too much, on a date to be determined. Van Treese hopes for the trip to take about two hours.
Initially, the route was planned to be a much shorter distance by heading south down Muskegon Lane and then between Big Lots and the drainage pond to the store’s north before reaching the site. Big Lots would only give permission to go in front of the store, however, which changed the route to south down Muskegon Lane and onto West McClarnon Drive. That would have required cutting through the parking lot of the property housing Miller’s Jewelry, Greenfield Shoe Repair and Tyner Pond Farm Store, whose owner didn’t grant permission.
Sherry Haines, manager of Miller’s Jewelry and whose family owns the property, said their insurance company advised the risk was too great, particularly to the parking lot and underground gas line nearby.
“I think it’s a great idea to be able to re-purpose that building for something else,” Haines said. “We’re all for bettering our community and seeing Greenfield grow, but it was just too much of a risk determined by our insurance. We not only own the business, but we also own this building. We had to look at what was in our best interest and what was in the best interest of our tenants.”
When Van Treese initially started mulling paths, one that included State Street was furthest from his mind.
“The reason I didn’t pick this route first was because of the construction going on,” Van Treese said, referring to the work on State Street that began this spring. “We didn’t know how long it was going to take them to get the median in, and I knew there was no way the state was going to give me a permit to move this 700-foot stretch while they were doing this construction.”
The median is in now and won’t be an obstacle during the move, Van Treese said.
He added he’s grateful for Crew Carwash’s patience as a route was settled, and for allowing for the opportunity to prevent the building from going to waste.
A set of power lines that cross over State Street will have to temporarily come down to allow the building through, as well as another set over McClarnon Drive. Wires holding a sign over State Street and two of the traffic light setups at State Street and McClarnon Drive will have to temporarily come down as well.
Van Treese said steel plates will be placed atop areas over underground utilities that the building will be traveling on, as well as over the sidewalks along McClarnon Drive, which will need to be crossed to get to the destination.
Once the building is at its new address, Van Treese plans to seek a tenant or tenants for the building. He also plans to pursue adding another building of about 30,000 square feet available for small businesses to rent office and warehousing space. The development will be called the Fields Business District.
Van Treese is thankful for all the help he’s received throughout the endeavor, including from Philip Going of Acura Land Surveying and Bill Kershaw, who did the new location’s foundation.
“The reason this whole project happened is because of relationships,” he said.
