The industrial buildings as architecture: Princess Way and Sandy Court — low sheds, one millwork plant, one brewery

Register row L22-#4 · closes as DUG

The ground's one industrial plat, as a built fact: Princess Way, off State Road 23, is the CDP's only platted industrial ground (twenty parcels in the county file, in the banked neighborhoods leg). The Tribune's 2004 account of the park — "Granger's industrial park grows" — fixes its building course: the park's twenty-five lots went on sale in January 2002, and by 2004 all but eight were filled, with firms arriving from the cities the park was meant to keep local — Traffic Control from downtown South Bend, Dimensions in Tooling from Cassopolis, and Kryder's operation relocating from Bittersweet Road and State Road 23 for a larger building. The fabric is the standard late-century industrial-park fabric — single-story metal and masonry sheds on deep lots along a single park drive (Industrial Park Drive carries the same stock: a warehouse/manufacturing building at 12914 Industrial Park Dr, Class C, built 1984, on manufacturing-industrial zoning, in the commercial listing record) — built to be fitted out, not to be looked at, and printed at that size.

The one plant with a manufacturing course: Big C Lumber's Granger facility at 50860 Princess Way is the park's anchor and the ground's only industrial building with a documented fabric history, and the company's own timeline carries it: Triangle Truss founded on the site in 1972 and lasting to 1976, making roof trusses for the subdivisions rising around it; Princess Builders, the affiliated prefabricated-house operation, founded 1968 and running to 1976; the Granger yard opened March 1981, repurchased in February 1994 as the hub for contractor and corporate sales; a millwork shop established at Granger in 1993; a window-and-door shop moved to Granger at the beginning of 1994 and on to Mishawaka at its end; a yard remodel in 1998. The company's present account gathers the manufacturing whole: three manufacturing facilities — a structural building components facility designing and manufacturing floor trusses, wall panels and roof trusses, a custom millwork and cabinet facility, and a window-and-door facility — with the Granger facility housing the administrative offices and serving as distribution center for sixteen yards. The building's architecture is the fact that it is a working plant that grew by shops: truss plant, millwork shop, distribution sheds and offices accreted on one Princess Way site across fifty years.

The second seat, at taproom scale: Bare Hands Brewery, at 12804 Sandy Court since December 2011, is the Sandy Court stock's documented occupant — a production brewery and taproom in a court of the same small industrial sheds, founded by Chris Gerard, trading from the same building since its opening (the banked businesses leg carries the firm; this entry carries the seat). Drive & Shine's statement in its own recruiting copy — "we design and manufacture most of the equipment that we use in our buildings" — is light manufacturing without a separate plant, carried in Businesses and not inflated into one here. No brewery stack, no mill complex and no reuse-centre course exists on this ground: no industrial building here has been converted from an earlier industrial use in the record reached, the Princess Way stock being younger than the reuse era and still in its first uses as of November 2026. That negative is part of the survey, and it stands open to the building-permit record named in the register.

Sources:

1. South Bend Tribune, "Granger's industrial park grows; More residents say they want to work where they live" (2004), via the Michiana newspaper catalogue (MBRL/ProQuest) — Princess Way's 25 lots on sale January 2002, all but eight filled by 2004; Traffic Control, Dimensions in Tooling and Kryder relocations.
2. Big C Lumber Co., "Our Story / Our History" timeline (bigclumber.com), read first-hand — Triangle Truss 1972–76, Princess Builders 1968–76, Granger yard March 1981, February 1994 repurchase, millwork shop 1993, window-and-door shop 1994, 1998 remodel; the three manufacturing facilities and the Granger headquarters/distribution role.
3. LoopNet listing record, 12914 Industrial Park Dr — warehouse/manufacturing, Class C, built 1984, manufacturing-industrial zoning.
4. Neighborhoods and Businesses (banked) — Princess Way Industrial Park at 20 parcels; Bare Hands Brewery, 12804 Sandy Ct, opened December 2011; Drive & Shine's equipment statement.