Building 82 implosion scheduled for March
- Release Date:Friday, February 27, 2009
- Dateline:Charleston, WV
SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. Building 82, the former Union Carbide Corp. office tower in South Charleston, will be imploded on March 28, University of Charleston spokesman Andy Spradling said.
The contractor originally planned to implode the building Jan. 11, but that date was pushed back while utilities were relocated and other final arrangements were made. Nothing but a skeleton is left of the 11-story brick tower on MacCorkle Avenue.
An exact time for the implosion has not yet been set. It is expected to occur between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m., Spradling said.
The building implosion has generated a lot of interest from the public, Union Carbide retirees, former employees who now work out of state, and even a film crew.
The Dow Chemical Co. announced in December 2005 that it would give the building to the University of Charleston. Dow valued the gift at $7 million. However, the Kanawha County Assessor's Office said that for tax purposes, the market value of the tower was $3.2 million and the value of the property behind it was $1 million.
It took nine months for the university to decide to accept the gift. "We wanted to make sure we thoroughly understood the site and what was there," University President Ed Welch said in September 2006.
The university originally said it wanted to turn the vacant building into living quarters for about 100 of the graduate students enrolled in the university's pharmacy school. But the university later determined that renovating the building for housing would cost up to $10 million.
Cleta Harless, the university's vice president of administration and finance, announced in September that the decision had been made to demolish the building and sell the property. The university is asking $3.5 million for the seven-acre site.
