By Scott Pohl, WKAR News
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkar/local-wkar-954527.mp3
EAST LANSING, MI –
With the exception of Beaumont Tower, the most iconic structure on the Michigan State University campus might be the MSC smokestack near Spartan Stadium.
The 230-foot-tall structure was erected at a then-new power plant in 1948, built to supplement electricity generated by a plant that used to be on the north side of the campus.
It hasn't been functional since the mid 1970's, and the smokestack has been falling apart for years.
The university is collecting public input on the options through March 15th. Tearing it down will cost $800,000. Preserving it would increase the cost to $1.4-million.
WKAR's Scott Pohl met MSU engineer Bob Nestle at the base of the smokestack last week to talk about its condition and its future.
AUDIO:
BOB NESTLE: "You can see at the bottom, the whole thing is constructed out of bricks, and down here at the bottom, you can see the mortar joints are still intact the way you'd expect them to be. But up there on the top, the mortar is deteriorated to the point that it's either fallen out or it's just rubble, and the bricks then are just sitting there, kind of in a bit of rubble rather than adhered into the structure with the masonry. There was a screen material put up on the top. You can where there's a kind of black shading up at the top, and that's essentially a wire fence material that was wrapped around the chimney, and that's what's primarily holding most of those bricks in place now, and it's rusting, too."
SCOTT POHL: "Is there a way of defraying some of the cost by making it a fundraiser in some fashion, selling the bricks as they come out of it? Anything like that?"
NESTLE: "That's a possibility. That's been done in the past on campus with various other structures. From my recollection, there's not a lot of those bricks that are sold, but that was one option that was discussed on this, especially with the white bricks. Those could be salvaged. There'd be about a $50,000 premium to do that, and obviously, the question right now is does it make sense to pay that $50,000 to salvage those white bricks. What are we going to do with them? That becomes the next question. Also, you'd only be able to salvage about half of the white bricks on the chimney, because some of them will get broken during the demolition process, and some of them are broken already, because some of the cracks and deterioration that have occurred on the chimney have already broken the white bricks. You can't see that from down here."
POHL: "The white bricks, of course, spelling out MSC, for Michigan State College."
NESTLE: "Exactly."
POHL: "And, MSC is spelled out twice on the tower, correct."
NESTLE: "Yep, It's on two sides of the smokestack."
POHL: "It's kind of sad, isn't it, for people who love this university to face this conundrum over the tower that they saw every day while they were a student here, or worked on this campus."
NESTLE: "Well, it is, but it's a continuing cycle. When the old power plant on north campus was demolished, that smokestack had MAC on it, and I suppose they had the same kind of discussion back then, when that was taken down. But, it gets to be a question, is that of enough value to justify the expenses that would be involved in preserving it?"
POHL: "So, deconstruction. What would that amount to? Would it be taking it apart brick by brick, or would it be one of those things with some dynamite, and BOOM, the whole thing comes down at once? What's the plan for that?"
NESTLE: "No, actually, the smokestack that was up on the north side of campus was dynamited and tipped over in one piece. That's not the way this would be taken down. Essentially, the folks who know how to do this, but they build a service platform, a circular service platform that would go around the stack. They would take it up to the top of the stack. Then, they would break a hole in the bottom here to access it, and then they'd go up there and they'd start knocking those into the inside, and they would fall to the ground on the inside of the stack, and then we'd take them out of the bottom with a bobcat or something like that. So, it'd be a fairly extended process. It would take two to two and a half months to take the stack down."
POHL: "As the university engineer, and in light of the today's economy, what's your gut tell you we ought to be doing about this?"
NESTLE: "I think we ought to tear it down."
To tell the university what you think should be done with the MSC smokestack, go to this website: www.msu.edu/mscsmokestack/input.php