When a building has poor ventilation, heating and air-conditioning and is in danger of violating fire codes, something needs to be done, no matter how much of a landmark the building happens to be.
Such is the case with Van Hise Hall, and according to Gary Brown, director of UW-Madison Planning and Landscape Architecture, it would be more expensive to renovate the building than to simply tear it down. So razed Van Hise will be, all part of the university's Campus Master Plan.
\This is something that's probably a long-term solution,"" Brown said of the forthcoming Van Hise project, noting the building is not likely to fall for at least 20 years.
""We obviously have to build new facilities for everybody that's in Van Hise and that will have to??happen first??before we can actually take the building down,"" Brown said.
Another building facing potential demolition is Union South, though according to Wisconsin Union Director Mark Guthier, no definite plans have been set.
""At this point it's an option that's being looked at as a way to respond to the needs of the Wisconsin Institute of Discovery,"" he said. ""It's not my understanding that it's set in stone at this point, although it's something that's definitely being looked at seriously.""
According to Brown, all the proposals are still very much in the planning stages.
""This is very, very early in the Master Plan process,"" he said. ""We're just looking at all of the buildings on campus and looking at ways for the campus to grow and redevelop over time.""
Brown said buildings like Van Hise, which was originally built in 1967, are casualties of this redevelopment.
""What can we do to build new facilities on campus without expanding our boundaries,"" he said. ""In order to do that we have to look at our existing building stock and we have a series of buildings on campus that are sort of marginal and we're looking at ways we can remove them and build new buildings on those sites.""
According to Brown, the university has no definite plans for new buildings on the potential removal sites.
Al Fish, associated vice chancellor of facilities planning and management, said the university evaluated all of the buildings on campus in terms of their long-term viability before formulating a list of ones that could potentially be torn down.
Fish said the university looked at whether or not the buildings were well designed, whether their structural materials were functional and how efficiently the buildings used energy.
""We came up with about 18 or 20 buildings that we felt ought to be targeted for future removal at some point,"" he said.
According to Fish, the university is taking these steps early to prevent proposing unnecessary spending to repair the buildings that are not up to snuff.
""We will maintain [the selected buildings], but we're not going to restore or rehabilitate them because they'll be on this list,"" he said.
