UW’s Crane and Hill halls offline, likely slated for demolition – Wyoming Tribune

LARAMIE University of Wyoming freshmen moved into the residence halls this week, but the campus two oldest halls remain vacant, and will likely never house students again.

These halls now ghost towns where first-year students lived and studied for more than five decades could be demolished as early as summer 2018.

University officials took Crane and Hill halls offline for the 2017-18 academic year in anticipation of a 10-year housing study and plan currently in the works that could call for the demolition of Crane and Hill halls.

That gives us our first ability to start moving on this housing plan, UW President Laurie Nichols said. If they were full, we wouldnt have that possibility. So, were starting to prepare ourselves.

Most years, UW leaves one residence hall empty. This allows the university time to make upgrades and renovations to the halls without disrupting students and opens up space for other purposes, said Eric Webb, Residence Life and Dining Services executive director.

We have had an excess of residence hall capacity since about 1990-ish, Webb said. Weve always had one residence hall offline since that time, which sometimes we used for temporary office space.

In 2016, Crane Hall was offline and remains offline now, though it was used for temporary office space as UW renovated or reorganized other parts of campus. For the 2017-18 academic year, residence life opened up four previously empty floors in Downey and Orr halls, which allowed the university to close down Hill Hall as well. This limited students to the four Washakie halls Downey, Orr, McIntyre and White and the Honors House. The Washakie halls are so named because they are each connected to Washakie Dining Center via underground tunnels.

In this particular case, based on the amount of students we have, we had enough space, enough capacity in our existing Washakie halls to handle the students coming in, so theres no logic in necessarily spreading them out over an additional hall, Webb said. (Its) just much more efficient to operate in the four Washakie halls versus using Hill or Crane.

The housing plan, currently being developed by KSQ design, will evaluate UWs housing situation and formulate a 10-year improvement schedule. The plan will be finished and presented to the Board of Trustees before the end of this calendar year, Webb said, but the administration is confident phase I of this plan will include tearing down Crane and Hill halls to make room for other living-learning community facilities.

The students who lived in Hill Hall last year might end up being the buildings final residents.

We dont think (Crane and Hill) would be used again, Webb said. We dont have any projects that Im aware of on campus that would require a need for temporary office space or that type of thing.

Now and for the foreseeable future, UWs two oldest halls and the dining area between them sit empty, awaiting whatever fate the KSQ Design plan holds in store for them.

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UW's Crane and Hill halls offline, likely slated for demolition - Wyoming Tribune