The Fisher Administration Center demolition, which began this semester, is well on schedule and should complete by the end of November. The demolition is due to energy costs and safety.
Tamara Batcheller, associate vice president for Facilities Management, whose role is to make sure the project is completed safely and professionally, said that energy consumption, obsolete equipment, and safety were main reasons for the Fisher building now being obsolete. She listed a lack of wall insulation, old lighting fixtures, and dated heating and cooling equipment as some of the issues.
Batcheller also said that “much of lower level under porch that has failed waterproofing under concrete resulting in multiple ceiling leaks at that level…and the building did not have a fire alarm system.”
It’s the end of an era for the Fisher Administration Center as the demolition process is ongoing. The building, which has been around since the late 1960s, was built to house all of the administrative offices that were located all over the McNichols campus. This was dedicated to the Fisher family after they gifted $750,000 towards the project; it became the central point of all administrative offices so that the University could operate more efficiently.
The building was designed to match the black exteriors of the older buildings on campus opting for a more modern look instead of the Spanish Mission style. The older buildings were covered in soot due to the smokestack inside the memorial clock tower. In 1990, cleaning restored the original color of the older buildings leaving the Fisher building out of place from the rest of campus.
The building eventually became closed to the public as part of an operational savings. In this period of time, the University let many local legacies, such as the police department, use the building for training so that relations could be built at the federal, state and local levels. Many issues have plagued the building for some time now.
All of the offices located in the Fisher building have been moved to the Student Union of the University. Because of the renovation the Student Union is able to house these offices more efficiently, and in a smaller space.
The plan for the demolition will be as follows: get utilities disconnected, obtain the proper permits, remove contents of the building, begin taking down separating recyclables, infill lower-lower floors and then landscape restoration. When completed the site will be a greenspace and the University will then decide what to do with the space where the building once was.
