Consultant hired to help city, FAU save T-buildings

Published July 3rd, 2008

By Dale M. King
CITY EDITOR

Far from the glittering new structures on the Boca Raton campus of Florida Atlantic University are the less-glamorous, but no less valuable structures that hearken back to World War II.

They are called the T-Buildings – T for temporary – and many stood on that massive property during World War II when the Boca Raton Army Air Field was helping the Allied effort.

Four of the T-buildings still remain, said Susan Gillis, archivist for the Boca Raton Historical Society.  And efforts are being made, hand in glove with the university, to save them.

During the war, Boca Raton served as the Army Air Corps’ only radar training facility, serving a total of 50,000 plus servicemen until 1947, the society said.  Today, fewer than 20 of the more than 800 structures built on the base survive.

One structure, T-3, was fully renovated several years ago, only to burn to the ground within a matter of weeks of its opening.

Gillis said T-5 and T-6 are probably the most historic, with T-10 and T-11 having a little less significance.  Still, the original doors from the war years are still on the T-10 and T-11 structures.

A few years ago, FAU President Frank Brogan said the university would work with the society to maintain the T-buildings.  The university even put new roofs on them and painted them.

The T-buildings are still used by the university.

Gillis said the roofing and painting will not affect the historic nature of the structures.  “If they replaced the windows with new ones, that would detract from the historic nature of the building.”

Money is the variable in the future of the T-buildings.  “We still want to see some grants,” Gillis said.

Also, FAU is going through a money crunch and can’t commit as many dollars to the project.

Gillis said the university and the society are working very well, together and with the consultant. “It’s very positive,” she said.

The BRAAF Preservation Society is working with the city on the possible establishment of a World War II “heritage trail” in Boca Raton—to remind future generations of this pivotal era in the city’s past.