On warm summer nights in the Vine Neighborhood of
Kalamazoo, Michigan, it is not unusual to hear the sounds of a saxophone
rolling down the hill from Western Michigan University’s long-abandoned East
Campus. What was once a corner of campus with buildings that housed subjects
ranging from Industrial Arts to Women’s Physical Education, and which currently
houses the University’s archives, the beautiful hilltop nestled between Oakland
Drive and Davis Street has become a haven for students and Vine Neighborhood
residents alike, wishing to escape the hustle of their daily routines.
However, the calm respite afforded by East Campus may soon exist only in the
history books of the Kalamazoo area. Three of the four buildings on the scenic
Prospect Hill are slated to be razed by the present WMU administration, which
released this decision in December 2012. The only building that will be left
standing, according to the present plans, is East Hall, which served as the
State Normal School, one of the original buildings on WMU’s campus. The other buildings—the
North and West Halls, and the Speech and Hearing Center, along with the north
and south annexes of East Hall—will all be destroyed. What is left of East Hall
will become an alumni center, and the rest of Prospect Hill, which once was
rumored to serve only as parking for the University’s football stadium, will
become a “grassy area.”
The Kalamazoo community is not taking this news sitting down, though. The
Friends of Historic East Campus, or FOHEC, a group founded in 1999 when
original plans to demolish the buildings were drafted by WMU, has been waging a
fierce campaign to raise awareness of the situation of one of Kalamazoo’s most
historic areas. “I see it as a form of environmental awareness,” says FOHEC
employee Sessie Burns. “The buildings have stood for over 100 years at this
point.”
The group, which was once an organization
affiliated with WMU, has since broken off from the University. Ever since, the
group has been in constant, strern, contact with the University. On January 14
2013, the group sent a letter to the WMU Board of Trustees, which highlighted
their concerns over the plans for East Campus. “We commend the [WMU] President
Dunn and the Board of Trustees for approving the renovation and reuse of the
East Hall core, but we remain unconvinced of the need or benefit for rapidly
turning most of the unique, historic East Campus into a parking lot.”
Later in the letter, the group outlined a number of
“Questions to be Answered by Western Michigan University,” among them the cost
of maintenance of the building, the cost of demolition, and the indirect costs
of demolition and redevelopment (debt incurred during the process, for
example).
Five weeks later, the Vice President for Business and Finance, Jan Van Der
Kley, sent the group a response on behalf of the Board of Trustees. Thanking
FOHEC for their support over the years, along with the $63,000 the group has
“contributed over the years… to help pay for the development and implementation
of plays, surveys, and prospectus costs,” Van Der Kley that only “the preservation
of East Hall is the best alternative when considering the financial realities
and many needs of the University.” The proposed demolition would cost around
$2.2 million, while the University is paying around $275,000 a year in labor,
material, and utility expenses. He also stated that renovations of historic
structures also cost two to three times that of traditional, ground up construction.
For the folks at FOHEC, this answer did not suffice, even though WMU is
currently around $302 million in debt. Burns is quick to point out, just as the
FOHEC website does, that WMU’s own structural engineer as deemed the buildings
structurally sound. “The preexisting investment that Western has put into those
buildings is immense,” says Burns, “and it’s not something that they can do
again.”
However, the University listed “East Campus
Buildings Renovations” as a #11 on their 2012 “Building Project Priority List,”
estimating a cost of $96 million, a fee that the state would not pay, leaving
the school to search for private funds to complete the project. However, as the
members of FOHEC could attest, raising that kind of money is impossible.
Confronted with this roadblock, FOHEC has started a grassroots campaign that
has spread across the city of Kalamazoo, from the Vine neighborhood to the West
and North sides of the city. Yard signs that implore passers-by to STOP THE
DEMOLITION OF HISTORIC EAST CAMPUS, along with bumper stickers bearing the
same message, have appeared all over the city. Burns once even received a phone
call from a woman complaining that someone put one on her front door.
The FOHEC website has called for signatures on a petition to stop the
demolition as a last ditch effort. Most of Burns’ time is spent trying to get
signatures and get the word out about the demolition, which Burns says the
University is pushing through with a campaign rife with misinformation. The
petition has 2,285 online signatures, and “close to 1,500” hard signatures.
Along
with signatures, the FOHEC board recently nominated East Campus to be placed on
a list of America’s “11 Most Endangered Historic Places” much to the disdain of
the WMU Board.
It
seems like all who are asked are quick to side with the underdog FOHEC. Those who
do not live in the shadow of East Hall are offended by WMU’s refusal to be
straightforward about their plans, even if the University says that it is
working with the group.
Furthermore, support is immense among almost all of the inhabitants of
the Vine Neighborhood. In fact, one of the two places people can pick up FOHEC
yard signs is at the Vine Neighborhood Association.
A lack of money, FOHEC seems to
believe, does not mean a lack of motivation to seek other uses for the
buildings, and they firmly believe that all they need is wholehearted support
from the community, and so far it seems like that is enough to keep the
buildings around.
