Piper Hall, which opened as a women’s residence hall at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1956, will start coming down this week.
Preparations to demolish the south wing of the Neihardt Complex began this summer, with the project expected to continue through January.
Brooke Hay, assistant vice president of NU facilities, planning and capital programs, told Nebraska Today in June removing the building would clear the way for a new green space and walking corridor.
“One of the campus planning goals is to try and open this area up more and have a great walkway to the east,†Hay said.
According to Nebraska Today, UNL explored options to deconstruct rather than raze Piper Hall, but separating out hazardous materials proved too difficult.
Opened more than six decades ago, Piper Hall was named for Elsie Piper, a former associate dean of women at UNL who championed women’s housing on campus.
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The facility was the final addition on a complex that housed women for four decades at UNL.
The Carrie Belle Raymond Hall — the Georgian Colonial building now known as Neihardt — opened in 1932 and was followed by two additional wings in 1939 before Piper was added in 1956.
Along with serving as a women’s residence hall, Piper Hall was also the headquarters for an intercultural exchange on campus that began in 1972, with international and domestic students living together in close proximity.
That led the facility with double-occupancy rooms to become a co-ed dormitory.
Most recently, after UNL moved its Honors Program out of Neihardt, Piper Hall was used during the COVID-19 pandemic for students needing to isolate.
Piper Hall’s final resting place — the Bluff Road landfill — will be the same as the former Cather and Pound halls.
The twin, 13-story facilities opened to the east of Neihardt and Piper in 1963, were demolished in a controlled implosion in 2017.