Wisconsin Builder | Top Projects of 2005

Back in time

Trempealeau project recalls area’s history

By Jennifer Pfaff

Members of an Olympic Builders' crew lay concrete floors in Trempealeau's new community center.

Photos courtesy of Olympic Builders General Contractors Inc.

Trempealeau County practically begs people to get outside.

Whether it’s the Mississippi River, Perrot State Park or the Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge, the area’s natural beauty takes center stage. In fact, during the 1800s, a Methodist minister published his belief that the area was the Bible’s Garden of Eden, according to the Trempealeau Chamber of Commerce’s Web site.

And the village of Trempealeau, situated on the mighty river between La Crosse and Winona, Minn., is taking that rich history and beautiful landscape to heart in the renovation of its community center.

“What we’re doing is trying to make it look like an old river town building by building a brick façade,” said Jerome Saterbak, of La Crosse-based Jerome Saterbak, Architect. “It’s been a fun project. It’s fun to take something that’s old and decrepit and make it work. It’s going to be real nice.”

Aesthetic improvement is only half the story. The expansion and renovation also will let the village reorganize the space within the community center. The original center held two departments that now have facilities of their own.

The new corridor for Trempealeau's community center nears completion.

Photos courtesy of Olympic Builders General Contractors Inc.

Trempealeau built a new Fire Department about four years ago and just recently celebrated the opening of a new library, funded largely with donations from the community, said Bill Yahnke, president of Holmen-based Olympic Builders General Contractors Inc., the general contractor for the community center.

The community center project is the latest in the effort to improve facilities.

“Half the building was sitting vacant,” Saterbak said. “It was time to do something.”

For the project team, doing something means gutting the entire building and leaving only the concrete block walls and roof structure, Saterbak said.

Once complete, the single-story community center will house the Village Hall, Police Department, the village’s historical society and a large community room with a catering kitchen. The 12,000-square-foot building will include 1,000 square feet for the Police Department garage.

“The original building was old,” Saterbak said. “It was built in the early ’60s, and the village had basically outgrown it.”

Construction on the community center began in December, and work is expected to wrap up in June, Yahnke said.

While the building will soon be reminiscent of historic Mississippi River structures, it is maintaining a simple and straightforward design that focuses on meeting modern requirements.

“A lot of the building was not up to present-day energy standards,” Yahnke said.

The addition of the historical society to the building requires some specialized construction. The historical society will display documents and artifacts significant to the village’s and county’s past, and that material needs to be protected from potentially damaging elements.

Specialized lighting was installed to prevent photosensitive artifacts from decaying, Yahnke said. Additional storage space also was built into the project to accommodate the society’s inventory.