La Verne : University Given Grant

A $20,000 grant from the city will allow the University of La Verne to begin restoring an aging dormitory that had been set for demolition earlier this year, a university administrator said.

The 67-year-old Miller Hall is considered valuable by local preservationists, who have fought to save it since plans to level the building were announced in September, 1984. In May, the City Council voted to allow the school to destroy the building, but estimates by contractors later showed that the cost of rehabilitation would be less than $500,000, prompting university administrators to reconsider, said David Flaten, the school’s master planner.

The council’s decision last week to give $20,000 to the school from historic preservation funds will allow the completion of a structural study and restoration of the building’s roof, Flaten said. La Verne Mayor Jon Blickenstaff said the grant, which was not requested by the university, was made in part to help foster a partnership between the school and the city.

If the structural study turns up “something extraordinary that we don’t know about yet,” Flaten said, the building may still be demolished. But he said that seems unlikely and the school is ready to begin a funding-raising drive to restore the building by the spring of 1986.