Demolition and New Construction at CSU East Bay’s Warren Hall

MENLO PARK, Calif. — Sundt Construction will demolish California State University, East Bay’s (CSUEB) Warren Hall on Aug. 17. Warren Hall is a vacant administrative building that the Seismic Review Board at the university deemed the most seismically vulnerable building in the CSU system.

The 13-story building housed administration offices and classrooms for 40 years after opening in 1971. The building has lain empty for two years, and most of its offices were moved to the Student Services Administration building on the east side of campus.

The demolition process will involve isolating and imploding key structural elements of the building. Specially timed charges will cause the building to lean and fall in a designated area away from other buildings on campus. “The university is working closely with our contractors to ensure that the demolition is safe, efficient and as least disruptive as possible,” Brad Wells, vice president, administration and finance and chief financial officer for CSUEB said in a statement.

The demolition provides the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) an excellent opportunity to study the building’s implosion, which will generate energy similar to that of a small earthquake, according to the USGS. Warren Hall sits one mile from the Hayward Fault. The USGS and CSUEB will record the implosion on hundreds of seismographs installed within one mile of the demolition.

The data recorded from the event will help officials characterize the underground geology near the fault in three dimensions. Not only will this demolition help the USGS and CSUEB determine the depth of the Hayward Fault near the university, but it will also help them determine how to calibrate the permanent seismic network throughout the Bay Area. Tilt sensors will also be placed in the debris right after the implosion to study how similar buildings fall after certain disasters.

A greater understanding of the ground near Warren Hall will help improve building codes and resources for a community more capable of handling earthquakes in the Hayward Fault.

A new five-story building will be constructed in Warren Hall’s place in November 2013. The new building will be 67,000 square feet and cost approximately $50 million. Of that budget, $12.8 million will go toward the implosion of Warren Hall, recycling aluminum window frames and removing asbestos from floor and ceiling tiles. The new building will be located on the east side of campus on the site of the former Early Childhood Education Center.

Not all of Warren Hall will be lost, however. The contractor for the new construction project will retrieve remaining pieces of concrete and steel after the demolition to create gravel-like rock, according to Jim Zavagno, Associate Vice President of Facilities, Development and Operations.

“It’s commonly used for road beds,” he said. “What we envision for some of the landscaping…is we’ll use it to fill in, maybe in the sidewalks or retaining walls. There’s a nice symmetry to that—the old Warren Hall is incorporated into the new building.” Soil dug from the new building’s site will also be relocated to the Warren Hall site to fill the ground in post-demolition.

The new building’s design will include glass and steel elements along with brick and concrete, which will help unite it with the surrounding buildings on campus. Distinctive design elements will include a walk-through space three stories high, an outdoor courtyard and two main entrances for students and the public.

The project team plans to secure a LEED Gold rating by taking advantage of natural heath and light, limiting the amount of glass used, preventing heat loss and gain through window panes, and installing a cooling roof made of thermoplastic material that reflects sunlight. The building will house between 250 and 300 offices when construction is complete.

The new building is expected to open in May 2015.