Creighton to build new residence hall

See images from the residence hall groundbreaking event.

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By Micah Mertes

Creighton sophomores will soon have a new place to call home.

The University has begun constructing a new residence hall exclusively for second-year students. The currently unnamed hall, to be located on N. 21st Street between Cuming and Burt Streets, is set to open by the start of the 2026 fall semester. The 151,000-square-foot building — designed by Holland Basham Architects — will house 400 students and include communal study spaces for residents and common recreational areas for all students.

The new hall’s announcement follows three consecutive years of changes to campus housing. In 2022, the University demolished longtime residence hall Gallagher Hall. Last year, Creighton opened Graves Hall, the first residence hall built exclusively for first-year students since the 1960s. This summer, Kiewit Hall, another of the University’s oldest dormitories, was demolished.

Rev. Daniel S. Hendrickson, SJ, PhD, president of Creighton, said upgrading student housing has been one of the University's central priorities in reimagining campus.

“For our students and alumni alike, Creighton celebrates a strong sense of community,” Fr. Hendrickson said. “It is essential that we continue to provide students with beautiful, welcoming spaces where they can live, learn, and make memories, that is, create community, and in doing so, keep being so wonderfully Creighton.”

The new sophomore residence hall will deepen (literally) Creighton’s commitment to sustainability. Beneath the hall, 186 geothermal wells, each 400 feet deep, will preheat the building’s domestic hot water and provide energy exchange for heating and cooling. The system will also heat the floor of the maintenance building north of the new residence hall. 

“This will be a superior and extremely efficient system,” said Derek Scott, associate vice president for facilities management. “It’s another great example of the ways the University is innovating in the area of sustainability.”

The recently constructed Graves Hall also innovated in sustainability technology. It’s the first building in North America to use Virtu^{HOT HD}, a solar-powered system produced by Naked Energy in the United Kingdom and implemented by ELM Companies that heats all water used in the residence hall.

The future sophomore residence hall is being built during a historically constructive era for Creighton’s Omaha campus. Recent additions and improvements include:

• The aforementioned Graves Hall, completed in August 2023.
• The 145,000-square-foot CL and Rachel Werner Center for Health Sciences Education, completed in August 2023.
• The 37,779-square-foot Jérôme Nadal, SJ, Jesuit Residence, a new home for Creighton’s Jesuits, completed in May 2024.
• Renovations to the St. John’s Fountain and Plaza, the Skutt Student Center and, currently, Creighton Hall. Over the summer, Creighton began retrofitting its iconic original building with a modern infrastructure.
• Now in development: a new softball stadium and baseball practice facility. The softball stadium, at 20th and Cuming Streets, will also be open to the community, including area high school teams and Little League tournaments. The state-of-the-art facility, near Florence Boulevard and Cuming Street, will be the main practice site for Creighton baseball and a principal location for teams preparing to compete in the College World Series.

This ambitious reshaping of campus, Fr. Hendrickson said, reflects the spirit of the Creighton community.

“It shows that we are an institution that has never stopped reaching for greater heights and growing in every direction. Yet through it all, we never lose sight of the history and values upon which our campus was built.”

Put another way, he said, “It shows that however much campus changes, we promise that Creighton will always feel like home.”

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See images from the residence hall groundbreaking event.