Down with Adams & Wells

Over the past two weeks, construction developers tore down Adams Hall and Wells Hall despite their nearly 40 year existence.

In the 1960s, the board of regents approved construction for two new residence halls to face Greene Street. These would be the first new residence halls at the women’s college since 1938. The first to be completed was Wells Hall in 1965. It was named after the recently deceased former president. The second modern residence hall was opened in 1966 and would eventually be named Adams Hall in 1978 in honor of the former Dean of Women, Ethel Adams.

These two residence halls remained a part of Georgia College & State
University throughout its history as a women’s college into its transformation into a state university.

Wells Hall was demolished during this year’s spring break while students were away. Adams Hall was demolished last Monday.

Students were a little sad as they saw a small piece of themselves go down with the residence halls.

“Coming back from Spring Break and seeing Wells gone was a total shock,” said Jill Tarleton, a junior and former resident of Wells Hall. “I lived there for two years, so it was sort of a part of me. Now walking by there is just awkward and eerie.”

“When I drove in and saw Adams looking so torn up it made me feel weird knowing I use to live there,” said Katie Shawcross, a former Adams resident.

Other students had mixed feelings.

“When I saw Adams being gutted out, it made me feel a little sad,” said Liz Kauffman, a former resident of Adams Hall. “But when I look at how nice our new dorms are in comparison, I say, tear it down!”

Tearing down a residence hall isn’t as easy as just saying, “I say tear it down,” as Kauffman said.

“There are some steps that go into demolishing a building besides all of the myriad of paper work you have to do,” said Dr. Paul Jahr, director of University Housing.

“First, we had the opportunity to salvage anything out of both Adams and Wells for usage by the university,” said Jahr. GC&SU kept the bunk beds, the fire alarm system, desk chairs, wireless Internet connections, emergency exits, soap dispensers and the door locks.

“By and large there is not much in these buildings that has value to us,” said Jahr.

The next step is that the contractors will come in and have the same option of salvaging anything out of the building that they want to keep.

“The first step in demolishing the buildings is the retaining fence. Then, all of the glass is taken out. After removing the windows, the contractor went at it with a backhoe, knocking out the majority of the building in a day and a half. The last step is the buildings in landfills to dispose,” said Jahr.

Brand new residence halls will be built in their place. The structure will be new and modern and resemble Parkhurst and Foundation Halls. The spirit of Adams and Wells Halls will remain in the new residence halls retaining the same previous historical names.

“The goal is to have the buildings completed by the end of fall semester so that we will have the options of moving students and their belongings over the break and opening the new buildings in January,” said Jahr.

With the rebuilding of Adams and Wells Halls, Greene Street is suspected to be closed through next fall semester for safety reasons. Along with the closing of Greene Street, is the loss of parking between Sanford and the Wells Hall lot, which will be used as a for staging area for the construction of the new buildings.

“Unfortunately for the university, the developer got the support of the city because that is a city street, it isn’t ours,” said Jahr.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Mar 21 2003. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry