40-year-old high-rise towers nearing the end
After more than 40 years, two of Ellensburg’s tallest buildings are set to come down. Courson and Muzzall halls, the twin buildings on the south end of Central Washington University’s campus, will cease to look out over town in 2008, when the university begins the three-month process of demolishing them.
“The two extremes are taking it apart piece by piece — deconstructing it,” said Bill Vertrees, CWU’s assistant vice president for facilities management. “The other extreme is implosion.”
The twin nine-story dorms were originally set to be demolished this summer, according to Vertrees, but the schedule was pushed back in part to find the right mix of demolition methods, he said.
The “quiet phase” will start during CWU’s 2008 spring break, and continue into the summer.
“The week after graduation we’ll start doing the heavy stuff,” Vertrees said. “We have the rest of the summer to remove debris and clean up the site.”
The footprint of the two buildings is set to become a green area built around the Wilson Creek tributary that runs between the dorms, according to CWU’s plan.
First opened in 1966, the buildings were used as dormitories for hundreds of students and campus visitors. People also often stayed there during the Ellensburg Rodeo weekend every summer. In September 2006, the dorms were closed and they had not been used by students this year.
The buildings had their idiosyncrasies. The elevators in the buildings stopped in a landing area between floors, leaving each floor of the dorm accessible only by going up or down a set of steps. They also used energy inefficiently, and offered a style of living that is not of interest to today’s students, according to Vertrees.
The combination of problems the buildings presented made it a better choice for the university to take the buildings down, rather than renovate them as CWU has with other dorms recently, Vertrees said.
CWU generally expects to use buildings for between 30 and 50 years, according to Vertrees.
“The high-rises lasted in that range,” he said. “We definitely have gotten our money’s worth out of them.”
That was Ellensburg resident Pete Wolfsehr’s concern when he heard about the demolition plans. A 1970 CWU graduate, he said he lived in one of the dorms when he was a student and still walks by the buildings regularly.
“I was a little surprised,” Wolfsehr said about learning the buildings were coming down. “Normally, it seems to me they would make it last longer than that.”
“I was a little surprised,” Wolfsehr said about learning the buildings were coming down. “Normally, it seems to me they would make it last longer than that.”
He wondered why the dorms couldn’t be rehabilitated as Kamola and Sue Lombard halls had been. But he said a combination of problems could be enough to justify demolishing them.
“If they turn that into a park, that would be a nice thing to do,” Wolfsehr said.
Because the university hasn’t selected a contractor to complete the project, the cost for the demolition is unknown, Vertrees said.
“We’ve never (demolished) nine-story buildings before,” Vertrees said. “We have money set aside, but I won’t quote any figures.”
Seventh Avenue resident John Atherton was busy gardening in front of his house Thursday across the street from Muzzall Hall.
“We’re really pleased with the university,” Atherton said about the demolition plans. “We think it’s going to enhance the neighborhood and the area around the university.”
He said he expects there will be some dust and noise from the demolition, but that it won’t bother him. He’s happy CWU plans to turn the site into a green area after the demolition.
“Aesthetically, these dorms are not the most pleasing in the world,” Atherton said.
|
Linear Mode
