The Lantern

Issue date: 2/25/08 Section: Campus

Kenny Greer/The Lantern Lord Hall is set to be demolished, joining three other construction sites on campus, including the Thompson Library, The Ohio Union and Brown Hall.

Ohio State will tear down two 100-year-old buildings this spring. Lord Hall will be replaced with more parking spaces, and Brown Hall will fall to give students more green space.

Kristin Poldemann, project manager for design and construction at OSU, said there are a couple reasons why the buildings are being demolished. "The first big thing is deferred maintenance, which is obvious ... it is not ignoring the building. It's stretching what you have to maintain what is there."

Poldemann said the buildings are more than 100 years old, which makes it difficult to keep them up to safety standards. Brown Hall has also become unsafe, which is why it is vacant, she said.

However, Poldemann wanted to emphasize that the university is deconstructing these buildings, rather than demolishing them.

The difference between deconstructing and demolishing is simple. The word demolish signifies the process of a wrecking ball and a bulldozer tearing down the building, Poldemann said. The pile of rubble is then sent to a landfill, which alternatively could have been recycled.

"There's going to be a process of deconstructing these buildings piece-by-piece," she said. "Rather than putting them in a landfill, we are going to divert much of that on to being reused, which is very responsible of the university."

In fact, Poldemann said she hopes to reuse a good percentage of both buildings.

Poldemann has also stepped up to let neighboring buildings know what is going on with the project.

"I started a neighbors' network," she said. "It's just been a couple of weeks now, but I'm going to be talking to all the building coordinators. They have a contact now and that's the whole intent with that. They know me up front and they know I'm going to address their questions."

After looking at the initial e-mail and facing some concerns, Michael Vanecko, building coordinator for the Science and Engineering Library, said Poldemann has a good plan.

"They've got a clear-cut plan, definitely," he said. "They've brought in Transportation and Parking, and they've got everything scheduled well in advance. So they've got it pretty close to well planned out."

Ray Catalino, building coordinator for the Journalism Building, said the more information known in advance, the better.

"We have to distribute (The Lantern) to buildings around there," he said. "So that will impact us a little bit, because we're certainly not going to want to be delivering to those areas while they're being torn down. The more we know as far as when they're going to start blocking things off ... it will be helpful."

Not only is recycling the materials and making contacts with neighboring buildings important to the university, but constructing a well-built building is No. 1 for the university.

"We're trying to be smart about our buildings," Poldemann said. "When we do this, we're improving the facilities you use."

Elyse Coulter can be reached at coulter.36@osu.edu.

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