RANTOUL — When a church signs a contract for a new organ to be built, it may seem like nothing’s happening with the project for a long time, said John-Paul Buzard of Buzard Pipe Organ Builders.
“A lot of things happen behind the scenes,” he said. “We have the pipes made for us in Germany, we begin to make component parts and all of that. It’s only after maybe six or eight months before a person from the church could come down and look at it, and it might start to look like a pipe organ.”
In the same way, the site at the former Chanute Air Force Base where ground was broken in January for Buzard’s new, pre-fabricated facility may not have looked like much in the following months, but now things are starting to take shape, he said.
Julio Crispin, a principal with Rantoul Warehouse Group, said the project is on track to be “move-in ready” in late November or early December.
Crispin described it as a “tentative deadline,” as Buzard has a project that he plans to start assembling in the new facility. He added the building could be ready sooner, depending on factors such as weather.
“We’ve actually started moving some of our used equipment inventory from our service department to Mr. Crispin’s other warehouse spaces,” Buzard said. “And we anticipate being able to move in the fall, probably around October and November, thereabouts. It’s our intention to be out of our existing building on Hill Street by Dec. 31.”
The new, 45,000-square-foot facility will be located at 700 Veterans Parkway.
“We’re currently doing all the footings and foundation work,” Crispin said earlier this month. “We’re planning to do the slab pour in the next about three weeks.”
The project was about 30 percent done at that time.
“In about three weeks, if everything goes well and the weather cooperates, I think we’ll be at 60-ish percent,” Crispin said. “And then we can start assembling the building, and that’s a lot easier. That’s kind of straightforward work and not really affected by weather as much.”
During the current phase, a bout of rain means waiting a couple of days for the site to dry out, he explained. Extreme heat is also an obstacle.
“It could compromise the strength of the concrete if you wet it too much, and then it also can dry too fast. So there’s some behavior in the concrete that’s affected by extreme dry heat,” Crispin said, adding that there is very little shade at the site.
As for the building, Crispin said the structure has already been pre-engineered off-site.
“Basically, they send us a box of screws and a lot of panels, and we put it all together,” he said. “The assembly process — you’ve probably seen pole barns go up. It’s a similar design, but it’s made out of metal, so it’s a modern way of building a warehouse or a manufacturing plant.”
“Everything seems to be going along just as Julio has planned,” Buzard said.
Crispin said he’s enjoying the work and appreciates the support he’s received from both the village and the community.
“It’s kind of fun to work on a project where everybody’s on your side,” he said.
He also enjoys collaborating with Buzard.
“He’s definitely a visionary like me,” Crispin said. “And I think it’s fun to bounce ideas back and forth. We also, luckily, have partners that kind of bring us back to the ground, to reality, so we can stay on budget. But between him and I, we’d build the Taj Mahal. But I think we’ll get close.”
