Anyone who has attended City Council meetings can attest to the fact that the council chamber is an inadequate venue for those meetings. The City-County Building itself is overcrowded. In order to insure the satisfactory delivery of services the public expects, it is time to look for additional space for both a meeting room, and as a means of relieving the general space constraints at the City-County Building. Some have even suggested that an entirely new government center be built.
While the construction of a new government center would be a costly project, there is a more modest step which could go a long way toward solving the space problem at the City-County Building. This more modest step has the added virtues of preserving a historically significant building, while also consolidating government buildings into a campus.
The Baptist Tabernacle on Fourth Street between Spring and Market Streets is currently for sale by a motivated seller. I visited with him briefly today. He said he has heard various proposals for alternate uses of the old church constructed in 1879. Most of these have been for restaurants or other entertainment uses. A better use would be as the main meeting room for official gatherings.
The structure has a striking facade that would make an impressive governmental building. It has the added benefit of facing into the large parking lot of the new fire house (the fire house faces Spring Street) which would create a kind of a governmental complex. The interior of the church has been drastically altered; the old floor was removed and a new floor installed, cutting roughly in half, the air space of the church's congregational room. The installation of the new floor caused three-quarters of the window area to be bricked in. Reclaiming this building for governent use would be a strong statement in favor of historic preservation. It could also help lend support to revitalization efforts along Market and Spring streets.
The most daring reclamation effort would remove the existing floor, and replace it with a floor at the original elevation. This would provide truly impressive space with a ceiling height of about 32 feet. Less daring, but perhaps more practical, would be reclamation within the current layout of the building. That scheme would provide twice the floor space with a still impressive upper floor and a ceiling height of about 16-18 feet.
In either case the public would be able to attend meetings in a commodious setting. They would be able to use existing city-owned parking spaces in the lot behind the fire house. And some of the overcrowding of the City-County Building could be alleviated as the current City Council room could be converted to office space.
5 comments:
Sign please.
bluegill:
I'll need an address.
You can call me at 500-3333 with that info.
Thanks
John,
I agree with you that the current meeting room for City Council meetings is not sufficent to accomodate comfortably people who would like to attend the proceedings and think your idea has merit.
Have you thought of submitting open letters to the Tribune to supplement your posts here? I have a friend who was the Director of the Jennings County (IN) Public Library who did that to help convince area residents who had voted down spending money on a new library previously to reconcern building a new library. It could be another way to get your word out to the general public.
I enjoyed our visit this morning and like the fact that you are using ideas to begin a conversation with citizens of the city. I'd like to encourage this dialogue and the first step to that end is to help your candidacy for city council. Please drop a campaign sign by when you are in the area and I'll put it up at 1705 De Pauw.
Keep it up John you are on to something here, we need this kind of dialogue continually not just during the campaign season.
Jerry R. Steuerwald
Jerry:
I haven't approached the Tribune about open letters but feel certain that the paper would not allow its pages to serve as a mouthpiece for an individual candidate. The library director's case would be different since he represents an organization of the public commons.
If I am successful in reaching the City Council I will pledge to keep this blog open and available for dialogue. My one reservation is that the segment of the public which reads or comments on any of the various blogs is not representative of the broader community's concerns. It is an appealing way to communicate with some of the people but it can insulate one from many others. It would be my task to make sure that I am hearing from all who want their views heard.
I like your idea John. I was there to bid just to protect the building as a historic structure. I personally weep for every beautiful old building and tree we lose. I hope the city can do a nice restoration but I'm not holding my breath. I can't think of another historic building the city has "saved". If this is a first, then hooray. I support your idea of removing the floor that halves the space and spending whatever it takes to get those windows filled with real glass again. One of my ideas for the building was sort of a Louisville Glass Works New albany style. God knows we have lost our glass throughout town, and our soul? Is it time to start looking outward again NA?
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