Cold War-era building to be razed
Union Township will receive bids on demolition of a military barracks that was used during the Cold War-era.
Potential contractors check out the military barracks to place bids on demolition.
Inside the barracks are several rooms, a restroom and a large mess hall.
Union Township will receive bids on demolition of a military barracks that was used during the Cold War-era. The building is on property that was known as the control area for the potential launch of several nuclear missiles that were in silos 1.5 miles away.
The military barracks was deactived in 1974.
Kerry Fox, community development specialist for Washington County Redevelopment Authority, oversees contractors walking through the military barracks.
Potential contractors check out the military barracks to place bids on demolition of the building. The township will accept bids starting Feb. 3.
Union Township will seek bids for demolition of a military barracks that was used during the Cold War-era.
Union Township will receive bids on demolition of a Cold War-era military barracks.
Union Township is seeking bids for demolition of a Cold War-era military barracks.
GASTONVILLE – Union Township was once home to a top-secret military operation during the Cold War-era, when defending the Pittsburgh region’s steel mills from a Soviet Union missile attack was a top priority for the U.S. Army.
A control room for missile launch pads at Nike Site 43 was constructed along Finleyville-Elrama Road near concrete barracks that housed as many as 100 men more than six decades ago during the nuclear arms race.
“This was a bustling place,” said Kerry Fox, a community development specialist in Washington County who is preparing to oversee demolition of the barracks at what also was known as the Gastonville Armory.
“They didn’t want the Commies blowing up our steel mills,” said Fox, who works for the county’s redevelopment authority, while he discussed an attack that never happened during the paranoia that followed World War II.
The Army decommissioned the Nike missile site in 1974, and it waited nearly 40 years to donate the control and launch properties to Union Township. In the meantime, the buildings’ roofs badly deteriorated.
“It’s really a shame,” Fox said Thursday while leading demolition contractors on a tour through the Gastonville barracks named by the military as 19L.
This Nike site was among dozens of similar operations in the United States under a defense strategy named after the Greek goddess of victory. The Gastonville Armory and the nearby Finleyville Armory made up the only Nike operation in Washington County, Fox said.
“This could have served as a community center,” he said while standing on asbestos tile flooring that has lifted, cracked and bowed from years of exposure to rain.
The moldy ceilings are stained and falling throughout the bunk rooms, mess hall, living room and bathroom, which now look as if they had fallen under a bombing raid.
This operation once controlled three missiles housed 1 ½ miles away in underground silos before those batteries were removed, and reservists then used the properties for training.
At one time there were nine buildings on the parcels of property, which combined encompass 124 acres. None of the buildings contains hazardous contaminants that need to be remediated or removed, the Army stated in a 2009 document.
The township has discussed creating recreational parks on the sites, and its supervisors also drafted a “wish list” in December on how to use the properties for economic development purposes, supervisors Chairman Deborah Sargent said.
“We really do need a jump-start,” Sargent said. “It’s very exciting.”
The Washington County Redevelopment Authority will open bids for the demolition of the Gastonville barracks at 10 a.m. Feb. 3. The building is 30 feet wide and 170 feet long. The contract is estimated to cost $66,000 in what will be the first effort to repurpose the property.