Cady, Foster and Brough residence halls on South Green will likely be demolished before students return to Ohio University in the fall of 2015.
Cady, Foster and Brough residence halls on South Green will likely be demolished before students return to Ohio University in the fall of 2015.
“Nothing’s 100 percent in construction,” said Pete Trentacoste, executive director of Residential Housing. “But right now the plan is that we would begin the work for Cady, Foster and Brough at the end of spring (2015) and the hope would be to have them demolished before we open in the fall.”
The Post previously reported the complex — three mod-style residence halls behind Brown Hall on South Green — would not be torn down until 2016; now, Trentacoste said the plan has always been to demolish the residence halls in 2015.
Before the demolition of the complex can begin, salvageable materials such as furniture, refrigerators and air conditioning units will be taken from the buildings and kept on hand for use in other South Green residence halls as needed.
“We will make sure we get all that’s worth saving,” Trentacoste said.
The university will also save bricks from Cady, Foster and Brough, which may be profitable. In response to requests from alumni, the university may have some bricks available for purchase after demolition is complete. Resident Assistants will also receive bricks from the buildings.
In addition to other preparations, the university must remove asbestos from the buildings to prevent it from contaminating the air during deconstruction.
The Martzolff complex, comprised of Martzolff, Fenzel, O’Bleness and Weld, might be closed to students next year as well. When room selection begins in February, only eight of the back 15 South Green residence halls will be available.
After a record-breaking freshman class of 4,379 students arrived at OU’s Athens campus this fall, Residential Housing was forced to house students on campus in non-traditional ways. Not all of those students live on campus.
In some cases, three students were placed in a room made for two people and non-Residential Assistants were placed in rooms with RA’s.
With 8,047 students living on campus, OU’s residence halls are only 100 students shy of capacity.
“I honestly hate to see them destroy any of these buildings because of the housing situation we had this year,” said Katie Evans, a current resident of Brough House. “They still work and can still hold students. If we kept them all functioning, that many more students could go to school here and we maybe wouldn’t have a shortage of beds again next year. I don’t think they are unsafe and I see it as a waste.”
Cady, Foster and Brough contain about 300 beds altogether.
“Those three, more likely than not, will not be standing by the time we get to the fall of ’15,” Trentacoste said.
Four residence halls currently being constructed between Adams Hall and Clippinger Laboratories will hold about 900 beds.
Those halls, costing OU $105 million, are slated to be open for the 2015-2016 academic year.
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