AIDAN POLLARD
News Editor
To many students, the demolition of the historic Fenner House on Central Ave. may not mean much, but to some community members, it means losing a piece of Fredonia itself.
“I don’t know that it impacts students at all, to be honest with you,” said associate professor and community member Peter Tucker. “Except the cost. The cost of tearing down Fenner House and then relandscaping it is gonna be well over a quarter of a million dollars.”
The building is planned to be razed following an architect’s study which found the building to be structurally unstable. The study advised that demolition begin immediately to avoid injury or mishap from those inside or adjacent to the building.
“It’s the easy way out,” said Tucker. “ … the SUNY construction fund, as I understand it, recommended demolition so they spend $300,000 [to] $400,000 to demolish it, and the college still controls that land … it still seems like a ridiculous idea to tear down a beautiful historic home.”
The Fenner House, which is adjacent to the president’s home, is planned to be turned into a park which preserves and highlights the property’s large beech tree.
In the letter to the SUNY Construction Fund calling for the house’s demolition, President Hefner cited the cost of preserving the house, at 1.2 million, to be too high and not in-line with the needs of the campus.
“Part of the I.M. Pei plan for this campus was to have this screen of beautiful historic homes to protect so that the campus [has] a visual screen from Central Avenue,” said Tucker. “What happens if that’s gone is [that] we see the back side of the Science Center, and that’s not a particularly attractive side of the Science Center. That ruins, again, part of the architectural plan for this campus, which was to have that architectural screen of beautiful historic homes.
“I haven’t seen, in the last 10 years that I’ve been here, any other homes being torn down,” said Tucker. “Have we neglected it so much — and I think the answer is yes — that it needs to be torn down?”
Last year, when talks were still open about the Fenner House, the university was considering selling the house as well as demolishing it.