Re-use WMU’s priceless historic buildings
Here’s a novel idea, WMU: How about re-using the buildings you already have?
It seems to me that the goal to, “…tear down all the old on-campus apartments and have the new buildings replace them” is about as unsustainable and wasteful a practice as any that exists today.
Today’s landfill waste is composed of over 30 percent wasted building materials. Why would you want to add to that?
Hmmm. What’s the vacant property inventory at WMU? I’ll bet there are hundreds of thousands of square feet that could be reused or adapted for a new use. Let’s see, Goldsworth Valley, all of those phenomenal buildings on East Campus — East Hall, North Hall, West Hall, Speech and Hearing, and those across the street on the other side of Oakland.
The REAL VanderCook Hall on Oakland Drive is sitting mostly empty, is a very cool building that was built to last, and part of the East Campus National Register historic district. Re-use it and make it a demonstration site for WMU’s new sustainability campaign!
Noble Lodge, at Oakland and Howard, is now another site that awaits a new life. Like VanderCook, it was built of quality materials, and with today’s available technology for adapting old buildings for new uses; the possibilities are frankly – almost endless – for it and the others.
Advice — get some architects and engineers on board that actually have some expertise in adapting old buildings. And when you do, I hope you’re looking at the rest of the East Campus NR Historic District as well – it’s priceless, irreplaceable, and gives WMU’s historic home an authenticity and character that you can’t get ANYWHERE else.
P.S. Putting the Archives way out at the edge of sprawl-ville is also a bad idea. Very bad.
Pamela Hall O’Connor
Kalamazoo citizen
Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=14585
Posted by heraldstaff
on Feb 7 2010. Filed under Letters to the Editor, Opinion.
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Great column Pam! It’s ashame that WMU is so far behind the times in preserving its historic architecture, and creating a vibrant urban campus which could transform its students as well as the community.
I really believe that Western’s Administration really actually wants to revitalize East Campus. I just recently asked about fixing East Campus compared to the new apartments at the WMU Master Plan meeting. The answer i was given was that for the same price to build the new apartments they could probably have renovated (i believe he said Vandercook). The problem is that they would have 1/3 the rooms available about 100 compared to a little over 300 if i remember the Apartment presentation. This means that it would take 3x as long to pay off the the renovation. The money going to build the apartments is from bonds they plan on selling (again if i remember the apartment presentation at the WSA meeting) and im not sure how the whole bond thing would work out with it taking 3 times longer to pay off. The good thing is that the apartments will be paid for outside of university funds but the sad thing is that East Campus is still not being used…
To fix East Campus would be a heavy cost on the students that the administration just doesn’t want to pass on to them. It is sad that the area isnt being fixed right now but there is nothing Western can do with getting less and less money even tho inflation is going up..
i do agree that it is sad and i really wish a fix could be found…