EVERETT – There’s a giant fresh hole on the Everett Community College campus where Pilchuck Hall stood for 49 years.
Pilchuck, one of the original buildings on the campus after then-Everett Junior College was moved north in 1958, has been demolished over the last several days.
Only its welding lab is left and it will be converted into warehouse or other nonacademic uses when a new welding program opens at the EvCC satellite campus at Paine Field.
Next up for the rubble heap is half of Glacier Hall, which stood near Pilchuck and also opened in 1958. That demolition is to be completed over the next few days.
The vacant space from the two buildings will become a 73-car parking lot that is expected to be finished before fall classes begin Sept. 24, said Larry Price, EvCC’s director of facilities and grounds.
Jim Menzies, a retired school administrator who grew up in Snohomish County, remembers when Glacier and Pilchuck were young in the early 1960s.
The 1963 Everett Junior College graduate figured they were a big step up from the former Lake Stevens High School campus that he attended known as the “Pink Palace.”
Today, however, with newer and more efficient buildings on the EvCC campus and others on the drawing board, Menzies understands why they are being torn down.
“They have served their purpose,” he said.
The demolished sections of the buildings include classrooms most recently used for arts and journalism, programs that were moved into modern and expanded classrooms in EvCC’s new Whitehorse Hall, which opened in January.
What remains of Glacier will house the staff services office, home to the college’s printing and mail center.
The school’s fitness center, maintenance building, Monte Cristo Hall and Olympus Hall were among the original buildings on campus in 1958.
As the old buildings come down, the college is preparing to build a new three-story undergraduate center known as Gray Wolf Hall, expected to open in 2009.
Groundbreaking is planned for September for the new three-story, $51 million undergraduate center.
Gray Wolf Hall will be home to the University Center of North Puget Sound and classes in the humanities, social sciences and communications. The building will be located just south of the Parks Student Union and Jackson Center.
Reporter Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446 or stevick@heraldnet.com.
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