Edward Sullivan, a construction official for the Borough of Manhattan Community College, was in his corner office on the 15th floor of the college’s Fiterman Hall when the first plane slammed into the North Tower on Sept. 11.

 

Later that day, hours after Sullivan and the rest of the students and faculty had been evacuated from the building, 7 World Trade Center collapsed across the street from Fiterman, shredding the southern face of the building and tearing Sullivan’s office in half.

Now, said Sullivan, as he stood inside what was once the building’s main lobby, “I’m finally going to see the other half come down.”

He and other BMCC and City University of New York officials, along with State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, were on hand for the first and last tour of the condemned 15-story academic building.

Demolition is scheduled to begin this month. Now gutted to its bare brick and iron girders, the building would be down by November, construction officials said.

Once the building is gone, construction can begin on a new 14-story Fiterman Hall. That construction—according to Richard Dalessio, a project manager from the state’s Dormitory Authority, which is overseeing the project—will take about two and a half years to complete.

Unlike the decontamination project underway on the opposite end of the World Trade Center site at the former Deutsche Bank tower, cleaning of the much smaller Fiterman Hall went smoothly.

Until last month, biohazard suits and respirators were required to be worn by anyone entering the building.

Benn Lewis, vice president of Airtek Environmental Corp., the company that cleaned the building, said city and state requirements for decontamination and demolition projects may be revised to require the “unprecedented” regulatory practices implemented at the Fiterman work site.

“It’s really interesting that our process is finding its way into the law,” he said.

Decontamination began in March 2008 after years of negotiations over insurance, financing and environmental safeguards for both demolition of the existing building and construction of its replacement. Last November, city, state and university officials agreed on a funding package that will pay for the remainder of the $325 million project. New York City will contribute $139 million to the demolition and new construction. Another $98 million will come from the state and $88 million from the federal government.

Built as an office building in the 1950s, Fiterman Hall had served as an extension of  BMCC’s 199 Chambers Street campus since 1993. On Sept. 11, 2001, the college was putting the finishing touches on a massive renovation of the building. That day, when 7 World Trade Center collapsed, pieces of it tore through Fiterman Hall’s southern facade, exposing the inside of the building to the toxic dust that engulfed much of Lower Manhattan.

It took the City University of New York and the State Dormitory Authority more than two years to negotiate insurance claims and another two years for the Dormitory Authority and Airtek to map out the decontamination and demolition plans.

Construction officials said the new Fiterman Hall, designed by Pei, Cobb and Freed & Partners, could be completed by September 2012. When it opens, the new hall will be composed mainly of classrooms and office space for BMCC administrators, professors and other staff, much like its predecessor. However, the building will also include a public café and two gallery spaces on the ground floor.

Sullivan, whose department had a hand in designing the new hall, said he couldn’t wait for the construction to get started, even if his office won’t be in the new building.

“It means a lot, having been here on that day, that the building is finally coming down,” he said.