Old buildings may get new life

Roofs with gaping holes, mobile units stripped of copper wiring and a snaking system of above-ground steam pipes could all be dismantled starting later this year as the Clemson University Restoration Institute begins demolition on more than a dozen buildings to make way for its proposed campus in North Charleston.

Old barracks, boiler rooms and base buildings either will be renovated or razed as the university begins the first phases of redeveloping 86 acres in the heart of the former Navy base donated by North Charleston.

"We are trying to keep as much as we can," said Alan Godfrey, director of real estate and financial affairs at the institute.

The building that houses the Olympic-size swimming pool is among those that was slated for demolition, but after studying the structure, university officials deemed the solid aluminum support girders to be structurally sound.

Though the pool was drained long ago, the roof is riddled with holes that allow rainwater to drip through, creating a slimy green cocktail on the 150-meter-long pool's deep end.

The building's future is on hold. It could become a laboratory. "It would take $3.5 million to make it a pool again," Godfrey said.

Other buildings are in total disrepair. A two-story structure that housed a boiler looks like a small meteor crashed through the roof. An old dry-cleaning plant is so contaminated that it's fenced off and no one will go near it. A collection of mobile units used by the Navy are overgrown with weeds, and their mangled duct work and insulation are the result of vandals searching for copper.

Paint sheds, tool storage facilities and a crumbling office building all will come down.

"They are in bad shape," said Edivania F. "A.J." Arena, executive administrative assistant of the proposed campus.

A three-story barracks building will be saved for laboratories and offices.

"That will be the first physical place that we move into," said Godfrey, though it might not be before 2010.

An old Navy lodge that looks like a two-story motel behind the dry-cleaning shop is gutted and burned on one corner.

"It looks a mess," Arena said, "but we had four reviews of the site, and it's a sound building."

Some work was done by the city of North Charleston to stabilize inside the former base chapel, but it's in bad shape. Rotten boards dot the clapboard building's sides, and the windows are boarded up.

"It's not suitable to have anybody inside of it," Arena said. Some hope it can be salvaged.

The old network of steam pipes running overhead throughout the property will be dismantled by the Charleston Naval Complex Redevelopment Authority, Godfrey said.

"There are tons of galvanized steel that they can recycle," Godfrey said.

The building that houses Academic Magnet High School will be saved because it is the best-kept, Arena said.

The school eventually will move to a new site off Enterprise Street in North Charleston where the former Bonds-Wilson High School stood.

Two 741,000-gallon former fuel and ballast sludge tanks are on the demolition list, but that could change if there is interest from a university-compatible buyer, Arena said. They already have been steam-cleaned.

The university is working with the Redevelopment Authority to have the demolition done.