Old power plant coming down; cream city bricks to be saved

Instead, the former power plant building — Building 45 — is being taken down methodically in order to salvage as many reusable cream city bricks from which it was constructed.

“It won’t just be knocked down; it will be a controlled process,” said Scott Ladwig, engineering technician with the Facilities Management department. “They’ll take out chunks and slowly bring it down.”

Those bricks will be stored and used for repairs/replacement for the other cream city brick buildings on the campus that are still in use, including the Milwaukee Soldiers Home — aka Old Main — and the Administration Building.

“The bricks will be pulled from certain areas and inspected by hand,” Ladwig said. “We want bricks that are in good shape.”

Progressive Construction Service of Janesville is heading the $1.7 million project. Demolition should be completed by the end of June, Ladwig said.

The site will then be turned into a parking lot to serve Building 43 and other buildings in the area, with a total net gain of 47 spaces.

Demolition has already begun, though passers-by may not notice. Ladwig said a lot of work is taking place inside the building, including asbestos abatement and addressing underground steam tunnels.

Besides a detour for the walking path that passes by the east side of the building, there will be little disruption to the area, Ladwig said. The Hank Aaron Trail, which borders the building to the north, will not be affected.

“This is a really old building. We’ll take our time with it and make sure everything is safe,” Ladwig said.

Once the building is down, the parking lot project should take about three months, with a tentative completion timeframe of mid-September, Ladwig said.

“There will be some growing pains that will affect patients and staff, but when it’s done, it will be a good thing — extra parking for patients and staff,” he said.

Building history

The building was erected in 1895 to provide steam heat and electricity to the other buildings on the campus.

It consists of three major connected buildings: The Engine House, the Boiler House and the Coal Bunker. The original Engine House and Boiler House are still standing; the original one-story Coal Bunker was replaced in 1933 with a four-story coal storage building. A small diesel engine addition was built in 1947.

According to Milwaukee VA Historical Liaison Mike Mullen, Old Main and the Administration Building — both built in the 1860s — had fireplaces and furnaces, but the power plant supplanted those heat sources.

And in 1887, Old Main became the first of the soldiers homes in the nation to use electric lighting, he said.

The power plant provided heat through steam lines and tunnels, Mullen said. “They are all over the campus. A lot were elevated, and then buried,” he said.

The Engine House formerly contained two Edison generators, while the Boiler House originally had four large coal-fired boilers.

The Coal Bunker stored coal and supplied it to the boilers.

In 1967, the new power plant, located west of the old one, came online, and the old power plant became a storage facility.

A 2013 study* noted that the building deteriorated badly since its closure, mostly due to salt storage. The weight and chemical interactions of the salt were major factors.

In addition, portions of the roof collapsed, leading to water damage. Meanwhile, the walls also deteriorated due to weather, salt, moisture and lack of upkeep.

“The deterioration of Building 45 is significant,” the study said, noting that “repairs, while expensive, can return the building to safe operation.”

It concluded that “the decision to repair vs. demolish is not a structural decision, but an economic one, based on a cost/benefit analysis.”

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*”Structural Condition Assessment Report for Building 45, Clement Z. Zablocki VAMC,” Meyer Borgman Johnson Structural Design and Engineering, Minneapolis, MN

To see historic and current (April 2022) photos of Building 45, click here.