Kline Center demolition approved by NSCS Board

The Nebraska State College System Board of Trustees, meeting at Peru State College on Friday, voted unanimously in favor of the college’s plan to designate the former student center as surplus property and tear it down.

Although the cost of demolition is estimated at $150,000, the institution will soon realize a financial benefit by closing the aging structure, said Dale Grant, CSC vice president for administration. He projects the college will save $80,000 per year from utilities and maintenance, and said the building may be torn down as soon as this summer unless another community entity is willing to renovate and lease it.

CSC President Janie Park said the closing and demolition of the Kline Center is not an easy choice, especially because it is such an integral part of the campus. However, she welcomes the savings during a time of budget shortfalls, and said the decision will improve the fiscal strength of the college.

Park said the administration considered “mothballing” the building, but fears it would continue to deteriorate and would be too expensive to bring back into use at a later date.

“Although the removal of the building will create a large physical gap on our campus, it will give us substantial cost savings and an opportunity to beautify that space,” Park said. “We have been looking into other exciting possible uses for that area.”

The removal of the Kline Center was listed in CSC’s official master plan in 2001. In addition to the structural problems, Grant noted the exterior of Kline is severely deteriorated and its interior continues to worsen. He said the building’s construction type, with a largely glass exterior and open ceilings, offers poor energy efficiency.

Most recently, the Kline Center has housed CSC’s print shop, tutoring services, conferencing, information services, instructional resources, college relations and the region’s Educational Service Unit. The building’s employees, who were alerted to the change at the end of last year, have begun moving to other facilities on campus.

The programs housed in the building typically occupy spaces that were designed for other purposes, Grant said. The operations of the student center moved into a new building in 1990s, and many of the offices previously in Kline have been relocated to other locations during the past 10 years. They include the office of financial aid, the alumni and foundation offices, and the college’s journalism program.

Despite winning an architectural award for its design more than four decades ago, structural problems were noticed soon after the building’s construction. The southern half of the building, which was completed in 1961, was closed in 1979 and later demolished because of settling problems. The north half, the portion still standing, was constructed in 1966.

The building was constructed after a push from students and faculty for a student center, and was highly popular after completion. It housed CSC’s cafeteria, bookstore and even a bowling alley. Faculty voted to equally participate with students in paying for the structure with a $10 fee per semester.

Historical accounts indicate the original plan to place the Kline Center north of the Administration Building on what is now known as the Dean’s Green was hotly contested by the Chadron community. CSC President Barton Kline, for whom the building was named, feared a delay would kill the project, so the college proceeded to purchase land east of Crites Hall. The land purchase itself encountered many legal snags.

However, in the rush to get the building completed, the Kline Center had unknowingly been constructed above a former ravine that drained from the hills to the south. The imported dirt in the ravine was unable to withstand the weight of the structure.

“Perhaps because of the difficulty in deciding where the Campus Center should be located and the fear that further delays would kill the project, no thorough soil tests were conducted before construction was started,” wrote Con Marshall, former CSC director of information, in his 1986 history book about the college. “The Kline Administration and the Normal Board reportedly felt that since the new site was just a short distance from Brooks Hall, where construction had occurred only a couple of years earlier, there was no need for the tests. Thus the Campus Center was placed on slab footings instead of drilled piers.”