Dairy Queen No Longer
The Dairy Queen on South 10th Street in Noblesville is partially demolished on Monday afternoon. The Noblesville DQ has served the community for 68 years, since 1954, and the current location since 1975.
The Noblesville Dairy Queen on South 10th Street is now just a pile of rubble.
A demolition crew on Monday afternoon started demolishing the restaurant that’s been there since 1975.
The crew started at about 2:30 p.m. and went until about 4 p.m. Monday, expecting to return today to finish the demolition.
More than two months ago, on Sunday, Aug. 7, I watched Noblesville Dairy Queen manager Cathy McConnell Zeller demonstrate the famous Dairy Queen curl on the top of a vanilla soft-serve ice cream cone before closing the store permanently, to make room for a future Pleasant Street roundabout.
The DQ building has sat there vacant ever since, awaiting demolition. Another six days, on Oct. 31, would be the normal season closing time.
On Sunday, as I drove by the Dairy Queen, I saw excavating equipment parked in front of the restaurant, a sign that the end was near for the 10th Street DQ.
I returned on Monday afternoon to watch the demolition. As the building was slowly demolished, more passersby slowed to watch, snapping photos from their cell phones while driving.
There is now visible progress at the $60 million East Bank river project: a four-story elevator tower standing solo in the middle of the property.
Yes, it was sad. Zeller wasn’t there, but she watched a quick demolition video sent from a neighbor. “Made me sick,” said Zeller, a 1972 graduate of Noblesville High School, who started working at the original Dairy Queen across the street in March 1969, at age 15.
“Strange that El Camino and the pizza place are still standing,” said Zeller, who is now once again general manager of the Greenfield DQ.
Firehouse Pizza, which closed on June 25 across the street, also due to the demolition, is the former site of the original Noblesville Dairy Queen, which opened in 1954 at 807 S. 10th St. The current Dairy Queen at 798 S. 10th St., opened in 1975 in its current location, and a drive-thru was added. The Reasner family (J.D. Restaurants) bought the Noblesville Dairy Queen in 1989 and is still the owner. El Camino Mexican restaurant at 797 S. 10th St., across the street from the Dairy Queen, was vacated Aug. 1, due to its upcoming demolition, also to make room for the Pleasant Street roundabout.
Firehouse Pizza and El Camino are next to be demolished, “probably this week,” the Wooldridge Construction crew told me during their last work break before calling it a day on Monday.
Tom Robinson, of Wooldridge, said, “Right now, I got all I want done. Tomorrow (Tuesday)I got to string a hose out and keep the dust down.”
Schwartz’s Bait & Tackle has a for-sale sign recently posted on the property at 118 Cicero Road in Noblesville.
The DQ is about the 30th structure that the company has demolished. Robinson said there were still nine or 10 structures to still demolish, including the two restaurants across the street and some more houses.
In other Noblesville news, Allisonville Road has reopened, the $60 million East Bank project has visible progress, and Schwartz’s Bait & Tackle riverfront property is for sale. And here’s the skinny on each:
If you drive Allisonville Road between Noblesville and 146th Street daily, you’ll be happy to learn that Allisonville Road — as of Saturday afternoon — has reopened just north of Wellington Parkway in Noblesville.
I’ve been cutting through the Wellington Northeast neighborhood about a dozen times over the past couple of weeks on my way home from Conner Prairie in Fishers. I’m sure I’m not the only driver traveling through the neighborhood during the road closure. And I bet Wellington Northeast residents are glad to see the road is open again, too.
The two-week road closure, planned during Noblesville Schools’ fall break, was for the construction of a pedestrian bridge foundation and to set the pedestrian bridge over Stony Creek on the new Allisonville Road Trail. The trail is 9/10 of a mile and costs an estimated $3.6 million; the city received a $2.2 million federal grant for the project.
The anticipated completion of the 8-foot wide pedestrian trail along the east side of Allisonville Road is expected to be by Thanksgiving, according to the City of Noblesville.
Allisonville Road, just north of Wellington Parkway, which has been closed for two weeks — for the construction of a pedestrian bridge foundation and to set the pedestrian bridge over Stony Creek on the new Allisonville Road Trail — re-opened on Saturday afternoon.
The trail is being constructed from Wellington Parkway north to the 5-point roundabout at Greenfield Avenue in Noblesville. The lanes and shoulders are being narrowed to provide room for the trail and to act as a traffic-calming measure to slow traffic as it enters the downtown area, according to the City of Noblesville. The speed limit will be lowered to 30 mph. The southern half of the trail will have a guardrail between the cars and trail, and the northern half of the trail will have a median curb barrier between the cars and trail.
American Water Co. is replacing an old water main, extending the water main where it didn’t exist and improving fire protection ability, as part of the project, according to the City.
In downtown Noblesville, the East Bank river project now has some visible progress: a four-story elevator tower standing solo in the middle of the property. The $60-million, mixed-use development — a four-story building with ground-level retail space and 219 apartments — by J.C. Hart and Republic Development, is being built on the 3.4-acre area that was formerly McMillan’s Auto Care & Towing and the Hamilton County employee parking lot. The J.C. Hart Company, a Carmel company that has been developing, building and managing luxury apartment communities since 1976, teamed up with Republic Development of Fishers, and together the two companies are known as East River Partners, for the project, which broke ground on April 14.
Also, just across the way from the East Bank project, also on the White River, a longtime business is for sale.
Schwartz’s Bait & Tackle has a for-sale sign recently posted on the property at 118 Cicero Road in Noblesville. The 1.39-acre riverfront property overlooks the White River and is listed for sale, by CBRE Indianapolis real-estate firm, with an asking price of $1.6 million. The property, which received a City of Noblesville Facade Grant in 2019 for paint and improvements, includes a 2,088-square-foot building with a bait and tackle business available for purchase with the property.
The Schwartzes in 2019 celebrated the 40th anniversary of their business, Steve and Lori (Harrison) Schwartz starting the business on Halloween in 1979, the same year that Lori graduated from Noblesville High School, just two years before they married. Steve Schwartz has been a Hamilton County Councilman for District 3 since 2002.
Contact Betsy Reason at betsy@thetimes24-7.com. Got something to share with the community? Drop me a line.