{"id":5315,"date":"2022-03-28T16:17:47","date_gmt":"2022-03-28T21:17:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/?p=5315"},"modified":"2022-03-28T16:17:47","modified_gmt":"2022-03-28T21:17:47","slug":"goodbye-gross-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/?p=5315","title":{"rendered":"Goodbye, Gross Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Concordia University Chicago\u2019s six-story residence building, Gross Hall, will be demolished by the end of the 2022 Spring semester. After 50 years of life, the demolition of the building will make way for a new use of the space that CUC has not yet announced.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>Gross Hall was built in 1969 and named in memory of the Gross family,\u201d said CUC president Russell Dawn, D.Phil., by email. \u201cDr. Herbert Gross was a longtime Concordia faculty member, serving as a professor of geography from 1940 to 1976, and editor of the Lutheran Education Journal.<\/em> In 1925, when Dr. Gross was an undergraduate, he and fellow student G.E. Rast founded the Spectator<\/em> student newspaper.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

During Gross’s time teaching, the CUC campus was rapidly growing. Gross Hall was designed to house 206 students, however, \u201cfor many years it was a female-only residence hall,\u201d said associate vice president of operations Glen Steiner.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Several current students expressed a need for something new in the place of Gross Hall, but also noted some of its enticing features. \u201cI have never lived there, but it\u2019s nostalgic,\u201d said junior Brynn Beetow.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI kinda like the lounge, that area is dope, <\/span>said junior Justin Aduo. “They have air conditioning, too, which is nice in the spring and summer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gross Hall has six floors, each with two or three clusters of six double rooms. The dorm rooms, which do not have their own showers, sinks, or toilets, surround a communal bathroom that is placed in the center of the cluster, next to a lounge area.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The design was intended to break away from the classic dorm style.\u00a0<\/span>Each other residential hall at CUC is set up with dorm rooms placed on either side of a long hallway. Gross Hall was also built on an angle, which had never been done on this campus.<\/p>\n

This uniquely built structure did not last. \u201c<\/span>During the period of time that it was constructed, there was a national trend to build quickly and not use the highest quality materials to reduce cost, which shortened the lifespan of the building,\u201d said Steiner.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since 2021, Gross Hall has primarily served as a space to quarantine students who had contracted COVID-19.<\/p>\n

There are no immediate plans for a new building to replace Gross Hall. After demolition, the area will be used for additional green space.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

CUC plans to release further information about the future of the former Gross Hall space at the end of this semester. \u201c<\/span>Later this year, the University will share details of its new Campus Master Plan, which sets out an ambitious and exciting 20-year plan to redevelop our River Forest campus,\u201d Steiner said.<\/span><\/p>\n

This project will set the stage for future opportunities as Concordia looks to improve the student experience and reinvest in campus facilities.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Concordia University Chicago\u2019s six-story residence building, Gross Hall, will be demolished by the end of the 2022 Spring semester. After 50 years of life, the demolition of the building will make way for a new use of the space that CUC has not yet announced.\u00a0 \u201cGross Hall was built in 1969 and named in memory […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":5359,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concordia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}