{"id":444650,"date":"2026-09-23T02:00:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T02:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/444650\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T02:00:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T02:00:17","slug":"uc-demolition-progresses-with-destruction-of-palo-duro-lounge-facade-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/444650\/","title":{"rendered":"UC demolition progresses with destruction of Palo Duro Lounge facade | Campus"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Wide<\/p>\n

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The site of the demolished west side of the University Center sits Sept. 21. Construction on the UC is expected to be complete by January 2029.<\/p>\n

Photo by Emmanuel Pizano <\/a><\/p>\n

The west side of the University Center is almost completely demolished, apart from cement floor foundations and the basement remaining.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The facade of Palo Duro Lounge, which faced south, was completely taken down Sept. 21, said Bear Lunce, UC and Commons associate director.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lunce said the construction perimeter was extended outward so the second-story part of the facade could be taken down on Sept. 19, when fewer people would be present on campus. By Sept. 21, the perimeter had been moved back.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel a lot,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s still excitement for the new project, the new things to come; there\u2019s sadness because how much student life is gone, there\u2019s sadness because of how much personal time I spent doing stuff in those areas.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Departments and some services began leaving the west side of the center during the spring 2026 semester. Demolition on the west side of the building started in June.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Once the construction has been completed, a significant portion of the remaining east side of the building will be renovated, according to previous Shorthorn reporting. The center\u2019s renovation is expected to take around 30 months, with completion expected in January 2029.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully demolition will be out of here by the end of October, and then in November you\u2019ll start to see a\u00a0tower crane erected,\u201d Lunce said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the May UT Board of Regents meeting, former UTA President Jennifer Cowley said the interior of the project was designed for maximum flexibility.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

An excavator scoops up scraps on Sept. 21 at the University Center site. The UC renovations will cost about $160 million.<\/p>\n

Photo by Emmanuel Pizano<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe most urgent needs from\u00a0our students are student organization space, more meeting space, it\u2019s booked out all the time, and more dining options, and so that\u2019s in part what we want to accomplish with this project,\u201d Cowley said at the meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Construction on the original building was completed in 1953. \u00a0<\/p>\n

In that time, the space has seen numerous additions and renovations. Nearly every day for 73 years, students have walked in and out of the University Center, using it as a space for anything from studying for tests to eating a quick meal. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Lunce said that once the project is complete, he hopes that a generation of students comes through the new building, and will be glad that the project was done in the first place.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou gotta make space to grow,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

@j.e.journalism<\/p>\n

news-editor.shorthorn@uta.edu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The site of the demolished west side of the University Center sits Sept. 21. Construction on the UC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1086,116,118,117,223],"class_list":["post-444650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-campus","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}