By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Sometime around Nov. 8 the wrecking ball will drop on the Administration Building at Bowling Green State University.
BGSU CFO Sheri Stoll gave trustees an update on the project at Thursday’s meeting of the Financial Affairs Committee.
The first step to be completed by the end of this month is the relocation of a gas line by Columbia Gas. Then in early October construction fencing will enclose the building and interior demolition and mitigation will begin.
Stoll said Friday that the project will involve 14 semi-trucks, and necessitate the closing of Thurstin Street.
The fountain and some trees will be removed, Stoll said. The university will preserve as many oak trees as possible, but locust trees will be removed.
The fountain will eventually be replaced with another a water feature but the nature of that has yet to be determined.
In early to mid-November the principal exterior demolition will begin.
As with previous demolition projects on campus, as much of the material from the building will be recycled, she said.
The goal is to have the dust settled on the site, and the demolition completed by the time students return for the spring semester.
The Don Drumm relief panels that were on the first floor will be removed and relocated to the new office of the dean of arts and sciences in Central Hall.
The project cost is just over $1.9 million.
The razing of the Administration Building, which was completed in 1963, is the final step in a project to beautify the entrance to campus.
Both West Hall and the building housing Family and Consumer Sciences have been removed.
University Hall and the adjacent Moseley Hall have been renovated. South Hall has been turned into the Kuhlin Center and Hanna Hall integrated into the Maurer Center. All surround what has been named the Bowen-Thompson Quadrangle.
“I think that restoring that vista from University Hall down Court Street will be amazing,” Stoll said.
