Near Eastside building to become ‘Another Fine Mess’

Tim Harmon and Julie Crow both have retail experience. Harmon, the long-time Cottage Home resident, once operated

Tim Harmon and Julie Crow are pooling their talents to launch a new business on East 10th Street.

Tim & Billy’s Salvage Store. Crow is probably best known for her former Modern Times vintage clothing store at 54th and College in Indianapolis

They are pooling their experience and talents to open a new venture – Tim & Julie’s Another Fine Mess, to be located at 2901 E. 10th St. in a key redevelopment node of the 10 East Business District.

The store will feature a blend of architectural antiques salvaged from demolished homes and businesses; vintage clothing and textiles; and assorted artwork, handicrafts and other goods manufactured before 1960.

The business will also evolve into a center for artistic and practical “up-cycling,” where vintage and antique components are fashioned into new products, such as a table made from an old window sash, or a purse made from an antique curtain. The store is planned to open in the spring of 2012.

“It’ll be a very amusing and funky store,” Crow said. “We’ll have a lot of odd things in Another Fine Mess – everything from fabrics, to lamps, windows and doors, to furniture. The possibilities are only limited by our imaginations and what we can find, and we both have a knack for finding oddities,” she adds.

The first-time business partners say they will spend approximately $100,000 of their own money to renovate the building to accommodate their retail space. They will receive bonus grants from the East 10th Street Civic Association as they achieve key renovation benchmarks, beginning with a façade grant from the association that will be used to replace the plate glass windows, woodwork and doors on the storefront.

The building had been acquired by the East 10th Street Civic Association, which was looking for just the right tenant for the area. Tammi Hughes, the association’s executive director, said her organization was very enthusiastic about the proposed business, in part due to Tim’s years of experience in saving old homes from demolition.

The approximately 6,000 square-foot-building was built in the early 1900s by Edward Vahle to house his hardware store. After Vahle retired in the 1920s, the two-story brick building was also home to a number of different neighborhood retail businesses, including a general store, a physician’s office and an art supply store. The building also has two upstairs apartments, which Crow and Harmon say they will also renovate, and are considering living in when complete.