The outside of former Sooner Card office in Stubbeman Village on Feb. 23, 2023. Photo taken by Amy Acevedo.

The University of Oklahoma is set to replace Adams Tower and Stubbeman Village with a new student housing facility by 2025.

According to an article published by the OU Daily, the OU Board of Regents recently approved a $5.1 million budget to demolish the pre-existing living space and strip mall. While future Sooners will benefit from these new dorms, the university hopes to eliminate safety risks for current Sooners during construction.

The demolition was set to take place in the winter of 2022, but got pushed back to this coming summer with concerns regarding student safety and delays. While no set process for demolition has been announced or confirmed by OU, Dean Hans E. Butzer of Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture is sure safety will be a top priority.

“There are clearly safety concerns,” Butzer said, “and I’m very confident they’re taking those into consideration.”

Adams will be the first of the three towers to be torn down. Richard Kuhlman, a former OU professor and campus architect, helped design the towers before they were built in the 1960s. Cross Village was purchased in 2021, with the help of the Chickasaw Nation. The university needed to ensure there was sufficient housing for incoming students during the demolition and construction process.

OKCTalk, a blog that posts about construction plans in and around the greater OKC area, posted pictures and details of plans they obtained for the new housing units. However, the university has yet to announce or confirm any of these plans. OU News Director of Media Relations, April Sandefer, says that things are still being sorted out before an announcement.

The purported plans shows two shorter, five-story buildings will replace Adams’ 12 stories. The OU Daily also reported that Walker and Couch Towers will come down next, as follows.

If the building is completed on time, it will help ease the university’s transition into the Southeastern Conference, which is now slated for 2024. As OU’s incoming freshmen classes continue to grow and the SEC draws in more attention, new housing will be one way for the Sooners to meet a new conference standard.

It is also claimed by OKCTalk that the university is working with ADG/Blatt Architects of OKC, who have previously constructed Wagner Hall and the Residential Colleges. 

While OU did not contact deans, professors or students from the Gibbs College of Architecture while completing new projects, Butzer is hopeful that their abilities may be called on in the future.

“We continue to offer our services to the university,” says Butzer. “We believe that our faculty, and certainly our students, who are kind of tuned in to what are really good dorm spaces, what are good outdoor spaces on a campus, what makes good landscape and plant materials, in terms of fostering a good campus environment.”

Official statements are yet to be made by the University of Oklahoma.