Kline Center’s troubled history to conclude with demolition

The Kline Center has been authorized for demolition after standing for 49 years.

The Kline Center was the first building built on the CSC campus for the purpose of serving as a student center. Before the Kline Center, Memorial Hall was used as the cafeteria.

When Kline first opened, it housed the cafeteria, game room, book store, publication office, faculty lounge, conference rooms, Student Senate office, and a four lane bowling alley. The building won an architectural award for its design.

“It was a pretty electric atmosphere,” Con Marshall, information services officer, said of the time surrounding the Kline Center’s opening. “I felt like I knew everybody,” Marshall said.

The Kline Center served not just the college but the community. “A lot of conferences were held at CSC, state-wide even,” Marshall said.

The Kline Center was one of the first buildings constructed during a building boom on the CSC campus.

The south side of the Kline Center came up in 1961. Kent Residence Hall followed in 1965, Andrews Residence Hall and the north side of the Kline Center were built in 1966, the Math and Science building was constructed in 1970, and the Burkheiser Technology Complex went up in 1971.

CSC fall attendance was 801 in 1961. By 1966, when the north side of Kline opened, fall attendance was 1,785.

The Kline Center project started when students and faculty agreed to pay for the structure with a $10 per semester fee.

CSC president Barton Kline, who the building is named for, estimated that the building would take two years to complete. At the time, construction costs were rising and Kline feared that if the project didn’t get underway quickly, it might not be built at all.

One issue halting the project was the question of where to put the building. Originally, CSC wanted to construct the Kline Center west of Crites Hall on what is now the Dean’s Green.

Members of the Chadron community disapproved of this plan. To avoid delaying the project, the land east of Crites Hall was purchased for the building.

In the college’s haste to start construction on the Kline Center, CSC skipped soil tests before construction. Administration felt that no tests needed to be taken because Brooks Residence Hall, which is right next to Kline, had been built only a few years previously. So instead of using drilled piers, which a 1980 soil test determined were required to support the building, slab footings were used.

In 1979, eighteen years after its completion, the south side of the building was shut down. Studies were commissioned to investigate repairing the building. But in 1988, it was torn down. The cost to destroy the south side was $188,900, slightly more than the $150,000 projected cost to destroy the north side.

The Kline Center has recently housed the print shop, tutoring services, conferencing, information services, instructional resources, college relations, and the region’s Educational Service Unit.