Crews will begin tearing down the facility, which will make room for Halbert-Walling Research Center, at 9 a.m. Monday, March 9, said Scot Colley (’04), executive director of construction and risk management.
The demolition will be the second of three on campus this month.
Beginning tomorrow, a small one-story building behind Chambers will be torn down that has been home to ACU’s Print Shop, campus security, WFF Facility Services and other organizations since 1938. Later this month, Elmer Gray Stadium likely will come down, as well, marking the final phase of the project to build a new stadium for ACU’s track and field and soccer programs. Last month, crews took down Walling Lecture Hall in preparation for converting Foster Science Building into the Onstead Science Center.
The flurry of activity is part of the Vision in Action initiative – a $75 million effort to transform the university’s science and athletics facilities spurred by three cornerstone gifts announced in February 2014. Fundraising on several of the projects continues; donors have contributed more than $42 million to the $45 million science goal, and more than $20 million to the $30 million athletics goal.
The first of the five projects is “substantially completed,” Colley said; faculty have begun moving equipment into the Engineering and Physics Laboratories at Bennett Gymnasium, with a goal of beginning classes there after Spring Break. The facility will be fully functional in time for the beginning of the 2015-16 academic year in August, said engineering lab supervisor Ray Smith.
