Background
The Monroe Oil facility located in Bloomington, Indiana is located at the intersection of West First Street and South Morton Street along the B-Line Trail. Over the years as an architectural draftsman in the Bloomington, Indiana community, this would be the second time surveying this commercial structure. The first time was while I was working for a local architect in the community around the 2010-2012 years back when the former Monroe Oil facility still had multiple elevated fuel tanks along first street and the homeless camped under them that was hidden from the street by the overgrowth of foliage. Remembering this old survey of years ago, back then the interior of this facility reminded me of something out of the Saw horror movies. There was no light, the windows were boarded up, debris was all over the interior floor, a scent of a mixture of mildew and petroleum products, and the constant noise of what I assume was a baby wilder beast shuffling around in the vicinity and demonic bats were flying above my head. I’m only exaggerating as there was only snakes, mice, a racoon, and some pigeons but when it’s dark and all you have is a flashlight and tape measure those are wilder beast and flesh-eating bats!
2020
Over the years many things have happened to the existing Monroe Oil facility structure. During the social/political riots, it appears that many have tagged (spray painted) the building with graffiti and the wooden roof of existing structure caught fire and was destroyed. While surveying the structure, the building contractors were on site placing the engineered steel roof joists and decking, the entire interior was clear of debris to survey making things easier.
Building Survey
Every aspect of the existing structure was measured, documented, and provided back to the client. Whether it was counting dozens of bricks vertically, the depths of the offsets, the varying wall thickness (3 wythe walls aren’t always 12″), providing accurate locations of all the interior slopes of the new bar joists. There were existing drawings created years prior as I mentioned earlier, but those are copyrighted by the firm. Another set of drawings were produced by the current builder and structural engineer, but those weren’t provided to verify the accuracy. One last set of drawings was from the metal roof supplier field measured the structure to fabricate the new steel beams and joists and had a set on site which helped in creating the multiple building sections.
It was fun visiting this site again to see how things have changed over the years and looking forward to seeing what the future has in store for its next life. For more information and history on the Monroe Oil facility please check out the Monroe Oil Facebook page.
Builder credit: Strauser Construction
