University construction, destruction ensue
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While students begin winter term this week, construction has also
begun on three major projects around campus. Damage to the Men's
P.E. Building and PLC is now under repair though no arrests have
been made yet in either case and the construction of the new
recreational facilities has begun where “the bubble” use to be. The old
Vet’s Dorms are scheduled for destruction in the near future, also.
Deflatable ‘bubble’
difficult to auction
Want to buy a bubble?
It’s a very large bubble—suitable for covering an
Olympic size swimming pool, holding football practice,
housing an ice skating rink, or providing 876,960 cubic
feet of storage space.
The 3-ton structure, which has been used jointly by
the University athletic department and the physical
education classes for the past two years, has been
removed from its site behind McArthur Court to make
way for new handball and tennis courts.
The dome-shaped facility has been used primarily
for rainy weather football practice, track workouts and
tennis classes, according to Arthur Esslinger, dean of
the School of Health, Physical Education and
Recreation, with soccer, rugby and touch football ac
tivities also taking place under its protective roof.
However, Esslinger said, the Astroturf field at
Autzen Stadium, the new all-weather track at Hayward
Field and the covered tennis courts now under con
struction have eliminated the need for the dome.
Esslinger said he knew several persons had ex
pressed interest in purchasing the structure, but that so
far there have been no “hard cash offers.”
Original cost of the huge nylon bubble, which is
inflated by two heavy duty blowers, was approximately
$35,000.
The now-deflated dome is stored in one of the
University Physical Plant warehouses.
Also disappearing from the new recreational facil
ities site were two quonset huts used for classrooms and
offices since post-World War II days.
To save razing costs, the huts were turned over to
Howard Nelson Construction Co., contractors for the
$480,000 tennis-handball facilities, when construction
work began the week after Christmas.
The covered area, which is intended to provide
multi-purpose use in addition to its primary purpose as
eight tennis and eight handball courts, is expected to be
completed on or before July 1.
Repairs to P.E. building begin
John T. Moody & Sons Con
struction Co. of Junction City was
the apparent low bidder for a
contract to rebuild the fire
damaged north portion of the
University of Oregon’s Men’s
Physical Education Building.
Moody’s bid was $238,782.
Approximately 22,000 square
feet of classroom and office space
were contained in the portion of
the building ithat was gutted by
fire last Feb. 16.
Construction costs will cover
restoration and certain
PLC bomb damage
scheduled for repair
An apparent low bid of $57,769 has been submitted by Milton
Powell & Sons Construction Co. of Eugene for restoration of the
University’s Prince Lucien Campbell Hall, damaged by a bomb ex
plosion October 2.
Five other bids were submitted to the Department of General
Services in Salem which opened them Dec. 9. The high bid was $67,849.
It was originally estimated that the bomb had done $75,000 damage.
Repair and reconstruction work to the four restrooms and ten
offices on the ground floor that received the major damage in the
October blast will follow the original architect’s plans. The building
v'as erected in 1962.
Work is expected to begin as soon as the Department of General
Services gives final approval to the contract, and is expected to take 90
days or less.
Preliminary checks have indicated there was no structural
damage to the building, but architects and structural engineers will be
making a load test.
Reconstruction costs will be paid from the State Restoration
Fund, accorindg to the Department of General Services.
alterations and remodeling which
will make the building more
useable and provide for possible
future expansion.
The architectural firm of
Morin, Longwood and Edlund
prepared the plans for the
project, which were approved at
the September meeting of the
State Board of Higher Education.
Improvements to the structure
include better ventilation and air
cooling for some rooms,
enlargement of restrooms, re
arrangement of space to provide
better circulation, and roof
engineered to permit future
structural expansion, possibly
through the addition of another
story.
General demolition work and
replacement of flooring have
already been accomplished
under separate contracts.
Of the total budget, the major
portion is expected to come from
the State Restoration Fund,
another portion from the 1967-68
capital outlay budget, and the
remainder financed from
building use credits available to
the institution.
This may be supplemented by
an allocation from the State
Board of Higher Education’s
reserve for plant rehabilitation
and minor capital outlay.
‘Hazardous’ Vet dorm to be destroyed
The last of the old Vets’ Dorms on the
east campus of the University finally has
been vacated and soon it will be torn down.
Vets’ Dorm No. 2, which includes five
units, has been deteriorating over a period
of years and during the past few months
only a few usable parts have been occupied
as graduate student offices and an ar
chitectural laboratory.
Earlier in the fall, the University
requested the City of Eugene’s Public
Works Department to inspect the building.
The report of the inspection, to J.O. Lind
strom. University director of fiscal affairs,
concluded that the building was unsafe for
occupancy.
Cited in the report were a number of
major conditions that make the structure
hazardous. The deficiencies of the building
included the lack of fire resistive con
struction and fire prevention measures,
sanitation, building safety, and “hazard to
life.”
The report recommended that the
University terminate the use of the
building.
At the time the report was received, 60
graduate students were using parts of the
building for office space. These students,
from the Departments of Anthropology
and Sociology, the College of Education,
and the School of Architecture and Allied
Arts, are being relocated. They have been
assigned space in Straub Hali, in the Agate
Street housing, and, in the case of the
architectural students, in Lawrence Hall.
The history of the Vets’ Dorms goes
back to 1946, when the frame buildings
were moved to the campus to handle the
flood of vetemas returning from World
War II. At that time, Straub Hall was the
only dormitory for men.
The buildings came from Vancouver,
Washington, where they had been built
during World War II as public housing for
ship yard workers.
When the Veterans’ Memorial Dor
mitories were installed on the campus, a
decision was made to name the several
wings for University alumni who had lost
their lives in World War II.
Names of all alumni lost in the war
were placed in a large glass bowl and ten
were ceremoniously drawn for the ten
units of the two dormitories.
Dormitory No. 1 units were named for
L. Kent Stitzer, Stanley Ray, John A.
McChesney, Francis Mintum, and Paul
Merrick. Units in Dormitory 2 were named
for Robert Chemey, Wyman French,
Maurice H. Hunter, Francis Nestor, and
Verdi D. Sederstrom.
Installation of the buildings was on a
rush basis, as was the furnishing. The war
surplus furnishings were trucked in from
Seattle and, as Lindstrom recalls, were
barely in place on the Friday just before
the buildings were opened for veteran
occupancy on Monday. There was room
for 748 men and the dorms were filled.
Dormitory No. 1 was tom down in 1955
to make room for tennis courts. By that
time permanent dormitories had been
constructed for men and the building no
longer was needed for housing. Tennis
courts, razed before the construction of
Walton Hall, were replaced by the tennis
courts constructed on the off-Alder Street
site.
Vets’ Dorm No. 2 was used for housing
men during the next seven years, although
by 1961-62 only four units were used as
dormitory space. In the next year, the
usable parts of the building were con
verted to academic purposes as offices,
classrooms, and eventually to house
minority programs.
In 1962, the old World War I surplus
building that housed ROTC was destroyed
in two fires. The Army and Air Force units
were moved temporarily to French and
Chemey Halls
Following a series of demonstrations
and window breaking in the spring of 1970,
ROTC units were moved to University
housing facing Alder Street. The move had
been planned some time before, to be
accomplished when new quarters became
available. In the meantime, most of the
broken windows in Chemey and French
were boarded up and nothing was done to
repair the damage. Space shortage
became acute, however, and graduate
students were allowed to occupy the most
usable space.
An era and the history of the
Veterans’ Memorial Dormitories will end
very soon.
Bids for razing the old building will be
let at an early date and the “tear down”
work will start in three or four weeks,
according to Leland Lorange, acting
director of the University physical plant.
Back in 1946, when the buildings were
trucked to the campus, President Harry
Newbum remarked that the life ex
pectancy of the dorms was ten years at
most. He was wrong, by 14 years in the
case of Vets’ Dorm No. 2.
Incidentally, on the campus maps, the
dorms are labeled collectively as Hudson
House. It is doubtful if anyone ever used
that name except the cartographer.