The demolition of Roberts Hall at the University of West Georgia is under way, and the director of the project said the site should cleared by the time students arrive back to campus this fall.

The general contractor, Abatech Diversified Industries Inc. of Snellville, about a month ago began removing hazardous materials from the building, as well as separating building materials and salvaging for scrap metals like copper.

The physical tearing down of the building began on Friday, June 1, with the demolition of one of the hall’s wings.

Tim McWhorter, UWG’s Campus Planning and Facilities Department and the project’s superintendent, said the completion of the job depends on how well the weather cooperates, but that it must be finished by the beginning of the fall semester.

“It will be ongoing throughout the summer,” he said.

Built in 1974 as a women’s dormitory, Roberts Hall was a three-story, 82,354-square-foot, brick facility that originally cost $2,250,000 to construct. The building has two wings and contained 402 beds, sleeping two students per room.

Eventually becoming a co-ed dorm, it served as a residence hall for 30 years, until August 2005 when the building was taken out of service.

Roberts Hall was temporarily reopened in September of 2005 when it was used to house around 200 Hurricane Katrina evacuees who stayed at UWG for about six weeks.

In January of 2006, the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia requested that Gov. Sunny Perdue issue an executive ordering authorizing Roberts Hall be demolished and removed. The board stated that the dormitory was “no longer advantageously useful to UWG or any other units of the University System of Georgia.”

After the new residential facilities were opened - University Suites and Arbor View Apartments - Roberts Hall was taken out of service when the second phase of university’s housing plan was completed. The site is to become a greenspace area in accordance with the campus master plan.

McWhorter said that when he was in high school, he worked on the construction of the building in the early 1970s with his brothers and his father, who was head of the brick masons.

“I was there in the beginning, and now, I’m the project manager over the destruction of it,” he said.