Old BYU-Idaho women’s dorms to be demolished to make room for parking

In a press release today, BYU-Idaho leaders announced plans to demolish the old women’s on-campus dormitory housing to make room for new parking. Below is the full release:

After housing students for more than 50 years, four former women’s dormitories on the Brigham Young University-Idaho campus will be coming down this spring. In its place a parking lot will be constructed with 250 additional parking stalls. The following buildings will be demolished during the spring semester: Annie S. Kerr Hall, Sarah Ann Barnes Hall, Edna Ricks Hall and Virginia H. Perkins Hall.

Two former women’s dormitories will remain: Helen Lamprecht Hall and Verla J. Chapman Hall. Both buildings have recently undergone extensive remodeling this past year and now house offices for BYU-Idaho Online Learning and other administrative offices.

The women these former dormitories were named after were instrumental in the establishing the center of learning that has become BYU-Idaho. The signage on the buildings has been preserved and will be presented to the families of the women they were named for. The land where these buildings stand will be utilized to best meet the needs of many more students in the future.

To commemorate the women these buildings were named for, BYU-Idaho has invited their living relatives to a memorial event on April 11 at 11:00 a.m. in the Special Events Room of the Manwaring Center.

Beginning the week of April 10, the Pioneer Lot and Manwaring East Drive Lot will be closed for parking. During the demolition, Manwaring East Drive will remain open to traffic for the Manwaring loading dock. The Smith Loop will be closed in conjunction with the new parking lot construction and for a ‘chiller’ line to be installed.

Because of the loss of faculty ‘A’ stalls in the Pioneer and Manwaring East Lots the Kimball Lot will become ‘A’ parking only. This change is not just for Spring Semester 2016 but will be a permanent change. Due to the loss of ‘N’ lot parking stalls, fewer ‘N’ parking tags will be distributed for Spring Semester 2016 in order to keep the same tag to stall ratio. The new parking lot is scheduled to be completed during the fall of 2016.

Please see the attached map for what areas of campus will be affected by the construction.

Thank you for your patience and cooperation during this time.