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Restoration crew undertakes brick and mortar work

Reprinted courtesy of The Grinnell-Herald Register September 22, 2008.

The extreme winter of 2007-2008 followed by excessive rainfall this past spring have necessitated emergency repairs of the southern L-shaped Iowa Transportation Museum building on the grounds, of the old Spaulding buggy factory.

Renaissance Restoration of Galena, Ill., which performed masonry, repairs to the Administration Building – known locally as the old Legion Building on the northeast corner of the historic site – in 2006 was again selected as the contractor. The Renaissance Restoration crew was on-site last week carefully performing damage control on the brick façade of the targeted building.

Renaissance working superintendent Ralph Brown said at some point in its venerable history, the building had been re-tuckpointed with mortar that was too stiff. The excess of ice and rain the last year caused swelling of that tuckpointing which in some places burst and knocked the faces of many of the bricks.

His crew was grinding the tuckpointing out in damaged locations, many of them below the windows, and removing the bricks there. If the back face of the brick is still good, Renaissance workers will turn it around and replace it on the same building before re-tuckpointing. The crew also brought good bricks from Galena to replace those bricks too damaged to hold their own against Iowa weather.

The overall goal of replacing portions of the bricks and mortar is to make sure the historic building remains watertight, Brown said. During the estimated three-week time-span of their work here, the crew will also be adding downspouts to the building to help with run-off and hopefully avoid future deterioration.

Chuck Brooke, executive director of the ITM, said the cost of the repairs would be approximately $30,000 with an 80 percent reimbursement from the Iowa DOT after the repairs have been completed. Brooke noted the emergency work repair work is not temporary but will be permanent. The entire ITM campus is on the National Register of Historic Places.

In other ITM news, Michael Audino and his associates at Charitable Giving Resource Center in West Des Moines joined the project team on Aug. 1 to launch the museum’s statewide and national fundraising campaign. Audino is experienced at major fundraising campaigns, and has a background in national and Iowa transportation spheres.

Brooke says the initial goal is to raise the additional $5 million dollars needed for Phase I of the construction project. Plans for a local campaign for fundraising in the Grinnell area are still in the development stages.