Come next year, South Green's landscape will be short some residence halls.
O’Bleness House and Martzolff House will be demolished in summer 2017 as part of Phase II of the back south demolition project, which passed at the Board of Trustees meeting in October.
Fenzel House could also be part of the second phase of the project, but no official decision has been made, Joseph Lalley, senior associate vice president for Information Technologies and Administrative Services, said at the board meeting.
“Fenzel is the alternative in case Housing and Residence Life needs beds,” Lalley said at the board meeting.
As part of Phase II, the latest the university can decide if Fenzel will be demolished is March, Lalley said.
The anticipated total budget for the project is about $2.5 million. However, if Fenzel is not a part of the construction, the cost of the project is about $1.8 million, Lalley said.
The second phase of the demolition will begin after Spring Commencement at the end of April, Lalley said.
O’Bleness was built in 1968, and Martzolff was built in 1969.
Dylan Henry is living in Martzolff for the second academic year in a row and said it is "kind of cool" to be among the last group of people to live in Martzolff.
“South, in my opinion, is the best, and all of my friends live here, so we’re going to try to make the last couple months as good as we can,” Henry, a sophomore studying computer engineering, said.
He said he decided to live in Martzolff again because he likes the location of the residence hall near Nelson Dining Hall.
As part of the first phase of demolition, Cady Hall, Foster House and Brough House were demolished over the summer, which cost about $1.6 million.
The demolition of those residence halls is part of the Housing Master Plan, which calls for the renovation and construction of halls on South Green.
Evan McNeill said he was placed in O’Bleness after transferring from Ohio State University because it was too late to find off-campus housing. He added that it would be disappointing to return to OU after graduating and not be able to revisit O’Bleness.
“It’s kind of weird (that it’s being demolished), especially thinking how many kids went through (O’Bleness),” McNeill, a junior studying exercise physiology, said.
