BYU-Idaho women’s dorms to be demolished, construction to impact parking

REXBURG — Four women’s apartment complexes, located on the Brigham Young University-Idaho campus, will be demolished this spring to make way for much needed parking.

The buildings — commonly called the women’s dorms — have housed single female students for more than 50 years.

But now with the growth of off-campus housing, the aging apartments are no longer needed, officials told EastIdahoNews.com. The dorms are set to be demolished this spring semester to make way for 250 additional parking stalls. The project will be complete during fall semester 2016.

“We are a growing university, and we expect to continue growing and we need to meet the needs of the students now and in the future,” BYU-Idaho spokesman Brett Crandall said. “These dorm buildings weren’t meeting their needs, so we’re repurposing the space that they are on.”

Crandall said as the student body grows, more campus parking is needed.

The now-empty apartment complexes — the Annie S Kerr, Sarah Ann Barnes, Edna Ricks and Virginia H. Perkins halls — line the street of East Third South. Each building had 30 apartments and could hold four students each, with a capacity of 120 women living in each building. The complexes have gradually been phasing out residents over the last couple years in preparation for the changes.

Originally, six women’s on-campus apartment buildings were used for housing, and two of the former housing facilities will remain. The Helen Lamprecht Hall and Verla J. Chapman Hall have been extensively remodeled and are now being used as BYU-Idaho Online Learning and other administrative offices, according to a news release.

The women these buildings were named after were instrumental in the development of Ricks College, which later became BYU-Idaho.

“These women, they were some of the first educators of the educational institution up here on the hill, before it was even Ricks Academy from the very beginning in the late 1800s,” Crandall said.

In their honor the signage of the buildings will be presented to the families they were named after. A special ceremony to commemorate these women will be held at 11 a.m April 11 in the Special Events Room of the Manwaring Student Center. The event is primarily for the families, but the public is welcome to attend and learn about he history behind these buildings.

Next week the Pioneer and Manwaring East Drive lots will be closed to parking. The Manwaring East Drive will continue to remain open to traffic for the loading dock. The Smith Loop near the Smith building will also be closed during the new parking lot construction.

Stalls in the Pioneer and Manwaring East lots the Kimball Lot will permanently become faculty “A” parking only. Because of the loss of “N” lot parking stalls, fewer “N” parking tags will be distributed to students for spring semester 2016 in order to keep the same tag-to-stall ratio.