Tank house move planned for Friday
And you thought your moving day was challenging.
Movers will relocate the Dresbach-Hunt-Boyer tank house early Friday morning, transporting the building from E Street downtown to a family farm two miles west of Davis.
The move will require contractors to cut the 250-square-foot tank house in half and hoist the pieces over the treetops downtown, said Anne Brunette, the city’s property management coordinator.
The contractors are expected to arrive at the site, 190 E St., at 7 a.m. Work should begin about 7:30 or 8 a.m., Brunette said.
Traffic delays are expected along the transportation route. The proposed route is north on E Street to Third Street, west on Third Street to B Street, north on B Street to Russell Boulevard, west on Russell Boulevard to Anderson Road, north on Anderson to Covell Boulevard, then west on Covell to the farm just west of County Road 98.
The route may change if necessary, Brunette said.
Clyde and Katie Kelly bought the 250-square-foot tank house from the city for $11 in July. The couple plan to place the building near “Grandpa’s Barn” at their farm, Impossible Acres, at the corner of County Roads 31 and 98.
About 20,000 people visit the farm each year to pick their own berries, pumpkins and vegetables.
The Kellys will paint the tank house red to match their existing barn, Brunette said. They plan to eventually rehabilitate it as a demonstration water tank, so visitors can learn about how similar tanks functioned historically in an agricultural setting, she said.
When the tank house is removed, the city will re-landscape the area around the Dresbach-Hunt-Boyer mansion at Second and E streets. The work planned includes adding a small concrete-and-brick patio with benches and replacing the sidewalk adjacent to the property on E Street.
The city will spend an estimated $50,000 to restore the property.
The tank house originally was part of the historic Dresbach-Hunt-Boyer mansion property. It was moved once in the 1970s when the Mansion Square shopping plaza was built.
It was moved several feet again last summer to make room for the construction of a café and offices next door to the Varsity Theatre on Second Street.
The City Council in May decided to give the tank house to anyone who was interested in taking it. The council was prepared to demolish the building, which required expensive rehabilitation, if nobody offered to take it within 30 days.
The cost of demolition was estimated at $25,000 — comparable to the cost of moving the building, which is about $27,000. That cost is being covered by the city.
— Reach Crystal Lee at clee@davisenterprise.net or (530) 747-8057.
Short URL: http://www.davisenterprise.com/?p=68664
Posted by Crystal Lee
on Aug 2 2011.
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The City was going to demolish the building? Years ago, the owner of Mishka’s said he would spend his own money to save the tank house, as part of his getting his new building. I stopped going to Mishka’s until that was resolved, which it now never will be. The City then was going to save the tank house, but made the inexplicable decision to rotate it 90-degrees ‘to facilitate business’ even though having the door face a different direction than the house is historically ridiculous. I hated that the decision was made to place the tank house next to the house, because that beautiful tree on the west side with the bench under it was chopped down. I wish I had realized moving the tank house would have resulted in that tree being chopped down, as I would have worked to stop that. Now the conclusion is that the entire thing was a farce by both the City and Mishka’s, the tank house will not be preserved, and that beautiful tree was chopped down for no reason, which to me is more of a tragedy than the loss of the orange trees, and this was totally unnecessary except to carry out the bait and switch paln. Let this be a lesson to those of us who give a damn when any such future complex shell game plans are proposed.