University giving Old Main a facelift

$900,000 job to restore building’s cracked, faded entryway

A student walks Aug. 21, 2015, past a damaged section of the 1906 portion of the Senior Walk on the east side
A student walks Aug. 21, 2015, past a damaged section of the 1906 portion of the Senior Walk on the east side

FAYETTEVILLE -- Boards cover the front door of Old Main.

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File Photo/NWA Democrat-Gazette

Damage is evident Aug. 21 on sections of the Senior Walk and portico on the east side of Old Main on the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville.

The main entrance to the oldest building on the University of Arkansas campus is closed until August, although the building is still open.

This week, work will begin to restore the 1875 entryway, which has cracked columns, crumbling cornerstones and a fading facade.

The project is expected to cost about $900,000, said Jay Huneycutt, UA director of planning and design. A grant from the Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Council will pay for $700,000 of that. The rest of the money will come from the university.

"The columns have been patched and repaired unsuccessfully over the last 80 years and have become structurally unsound," according to the grant application.

The columns support the entablature and other parts of the portico, which is featured on the official seal of the university.

Four Indiana limestone columns -- each 15.7 feet long and weighing 6,000 pounds -- are being hauled by truck from Wisconsin to Fayetteville to replace the original, cracked columns on the front entryway.

They should arrive Monday, said Herb Sorensen, project coordinator with Quarra Stone Co. in Madison, Wis.

They are the largest columns Quarra Stone has made in its 27-year history, larger than the columns Quarra made for the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center in Washington.

Indiana limestone is the same material that was used for the Washington Monument, Empire State Building and Yankee Stadium.

Taking steps

Besides the columns, other parts of the limestone portico will be repaired or replaced, and steps will be taken to keep moisture from damaging the stone.

Four limestone steps and the landing will be replaced with sandstone, which was the original material on that part of the building. The limestone steps and landing were installed in 1981.

"Repair and selective replacement of the original steps will be performed as required," according to the grant application. "All reusable historic material will remain."

There are two inscribed cornerstones on the front of Old Main, one of which reads "The Arkansas Industrial University, Founded in 1871."

Both of the cornerstone inscriptions are damaged because moisture trapped within the pedestal migrated through the limestone, depositing calcium on the face of the stone, according to the grant request. This made the original inscribed cornerstone faces "unsalvageable" in their current location.

So Quarra Stone made replicas to replace the originals.

Huneycutt said the original inscriptions will be preserved and displayed inside a campus building, probably Old Main or Mullins Library.

The restoration will also include repairing and repainting the entry doors and vestibule doors.

"New historically appropriate door hardware will be installed," according to the grant application.

The restoration work is being done by CDI Contractors of Fayetteville.

Old Main was designed by John M. Van Osdel, a Chicago architect, in the Second Empire architectural style, according to the grant application. It is a nearly identical replica of a building that was at Illinois Industrial University (now the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). The only difference is that the two towers were swapped, with the taller bell tower to the right side of Old Main and the smaller clock tower moved to the left, according to Fayettevillehistory.org.

Old Main went through a complete interior renovation and limited exterior renovation in the 1980s, according to the grant application. An exterior renovation project was completed in 2008, but it didn't provide enough funding for restoration of the portico or limestone steps.

Senior Walk

A plan is also in the works to replace the oldest part of the university' Senior Walk -- a section of sidewalk that contains the names of seniors in the classes from 1876 through 1924. Many of those names were inscribed by hand in wet concrete.

In places, the sidewalk has cracked into pieces. The section to be replaced begins near the front door of Old Main and extends east about 300 feet toward Arkansas Avenue.

The Fayetteville campus is unique because it has the names of the vast majority of graduates -- about 170,000 -- in sidewalks that wend for 5 miles through campus.

Huneycutt said the proposal calls for replacing the damaged concrete sidewalk with granite, which would last three times longer than concrete. Names would be sandblasted into place.

The cost would be about $500,000, which would be paid using grants and private donations, Huneycutt said. A decision on the project could be made this week. Huneycutt said a meeting will be held Tuesday with Joseph Steinmetz, chancellor of the Fayetteville campus, and members of his executive committee.

NW News on 05/23/2016

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