'Temporary' CA buildings being demolished - carefully From Inside Purdue Four 56-year-old "temporary" barracks buildings are finally yielding their space near Stadium and Northwestern avenues. Long the subjects of jokes and a sort of ironic pride, the post-World War II buildings are making way for the Millennium Engineering Building. The new building will house administration of the College of Engineering, two of its schools, its new Department of Engineering Education and others of its programs. Solicitation of bids is scheduled for fall. Lewie Wallace, construction superintendent in physical facilities' engineering, utilities and construction section, says the demolition is going well. The four barracks - known since 1975 as Creative Arts Buildings 1, 2, 4 and 5 - are being razed by Dore and Associates of Bay City, Mich., which won the bid for the work Jan. 8. "The contract is for $289,600 for compete demolition, removal of special materials, cleanup and capping of utilities at the street," Wallace says. "That leaves it ready for a construction crew." The special materials consist mainly of transite, an asbestos cement board, which was used in walls and roofs. In 1947, when the buildings went up, the health risks of asbestos were not understood. Today, removal of such materials is highly regulated by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and the Indiana Department of Labor (IOSHA). "The transite is removed by hand, taken out in sheets, double-wrapped in plastic, put in dump bin and taken to a landfill, all according to IDEM requirements," Wallace says. The contractor and haulers are licensed, he says, and so is the landfill. Kevin Thedans, construction health and safety coordinator in Purdue's Department of Radiological and Environmental Management, is heading a monitoring process during the work and conducting safety audits, Wallace says. No release of asbestos has occurred, he says. "When we finish at the site, we'll run a check of the ground to make sure there's nothing residual," he says. Dore is to finish the demolition by July 9. The start date was Feb. 11, but it wasn't visible to passersby at first because the initial work was inside. After the demolition, Wallace says, the fence around the site will remain and await the construction project. It will be cheaper that way than taking down one and putting up another in a few months. The buildings were erected as Federal Works Administration projects in the post-war boom on campuses, and initially were known as FWA 1, 2, 4 and 5. Purdue went from 3,356 students in March 1945 to 11,472 in October 1946 as a result of the war's end and the GI Bill of Rights. In their early years, the barracks were classrooms or laboratories for chemistry, physics, Navy science and civil engineering, among other things. At times they housed offices. A fire in Matthews Hall in March 1972 forced visual arts offices and studios to move to the barracks "temporarily." But in 1975, in a concession to reality, the structures were renamed Creative Arts Buildings. The visual arts programs moved out last year to enjoy their new home in the Visual and Performing Arts Building.