Progress or history?

Thursday, Oct. 25, 2007 | 7:45 a.m.

A squat white box of a building facing Maryland Parkway, UNLV's Maude Frazier Hall seems nothing special. Outside, the paint peels. Inside, the ceiling, or something above the ceiling, rattles when the ventilation system turns on. Students wait in line to register for classes and request transcripts.

But as the university celebrates its 50th year, people are queuing up to save this nondescript - and some say ugly - little structure. Frazier Hall, the campus' first building, is scheduled to be demolished next fall.

A small portion of the building that houses the campus phone switch and other infrastructure will get a reprieve until the technology is no longer needed.

UNLV officials say it would have cost more to renovate Frazier Hall than to move the student services it houses to a new building.

The plan is to replace the building with landscaping, creating a formal entrance to the grounds.

"Most people who drive around don't really know there's a really nice parklike setting in the core of the campus there," said Gerry Bomotti, senior vice president of finance and business.

Razing Frazier Hall will make UNLV a more inviting place, giving passersby a view of lush, tree-shaded lawns now hidden behind the building. Maude Frazier, the pioneer educator who pressured state officials a half -century ago to build a university in Southern Nevada, will be honored elsewhere at UNLV.

But the classic Vegas blow-it-up-when-it-ages mentality doesn't sit well with everyone.

"I am concerned about just tearing everything down and imploding a feature of Las Vegas, which we do constantly up and down the Strip," said Nevada System of Higher Education Regent Steve Sisolak, who earned a master's degree from UNLV in 1978. "I don't know if we want to take that to the university."

If Sisolak is going to back demolition, " they're going to have to give me an awful good reason why they've got to tear it down," he said.

"When I heard this I thought they were kidding me," Regent Mark Alden said of plans to flatten Frazier Hall.

"I'm in total shock. Every time I think about it I start crying, and I'm not even a graduate of this school. But I have enough sense to know what history is," he said. "And history is everything."

In the early years, Frazier Hall was the center of life at UNLV. On Sept. 10, 1957, it welcomed 498 students to the first classes on campus. A library, science laboratories, classrooms and faculty offices were all squeezed into it, according to an exhibit at UNLV's Marjorie Barrick Museum in honor of the school's 50th anniversary . Snakes, frogs and lizards for biology classes lived in cages lining the halls.

Before UNLV had a student union, friends would gather on a patio outside Frazier Hall to swap stories or play chess and guitar between classes, according to a book on UNLV's history by professor Eugene Moehring . That patio was later enclosed.

During UNLV's early years, Moehring writes, rattlesnakes on occasion terrorized Frazier Hall, shimmying down hallways and making themselves at home under desks and on bookshelves.

Today different problems plague the building. Old age has left Frazier Hall's roof and its electrical, heating, air condition ing and plumbing systems in disrepair. Water leaks have damaged some walls.

Fixing the 16,600-square-foot structure would cost about $5 million more than the $10 million UNLV spent on the new building that will house the registrar's office and other Frazier Hall services, Bomotti said.

Honoring Frazier - not preserving an exhausted building - should be the priority, UNLV officials say.

"We're firmly committed to having some ongoing recognition of Maude Frazier's name and her early impact on campus," university President David Ashley said. Plans to destroy the building predate his arrival at UNLV last year.

The salute to Frazier could come in the form of a plaque or other memorial in the new student services building. Naming the new gateway to the campus after her is another possibility, UNLV spokesman Dave Tonelli said.

The new entryway would fit in with Midtown UNLV, an effort by the university and private developers to revitalize Maryland Parkway with housing, shopping and improved mass transit.

Regent James Dean Leavitt said razing Frazier Hall may be the cost of growth.

"I think that it's something that they need to do," he said. "And I think they need to find a way to still honor Maude Frazier.

"But the campus has changed considerably since the early days, and were always looking to grow in ways to enhance the experience for all students," he said.

Those who want to save the hall, such as Corinne Escobar, president of the Preservation Association of Clark County, say the university should preserve its fi rst building.

Although the architectural value of Frazier Hall is debatable "we acknowledge it's not a pretty building," Escobar says the association says the structure has social significance.

"It's the first benchmark, the first major benchmark, in higher education in Southern Nevada," said Escobar, who received a masters degree in 1990 from UNLV. "And being the fi rst building, it means that virtually every alum has had some experience in that building and has memories."

Escobar suggests placing permanent exhibits in Frazier Hall showcasing UNLVs history. She sent letters to regents asking them to save the building, which Alden says will be discussed at the boards next meeting.

Escobar recalls heading to Frazier Hall as a student to register for classes and pay fees.

Sisolak says that if he remembers correctly, the building was where he saw a posting for a casino count-room job he later snagged.

Ron Smith, interim vice president of research and graduate college dean, has a lovehate relationship with Frazier Hall.

He had an office in the building for about five years, starting in the late 1980s. The air was stale, the offices were tiny and cramped, Smith says. He was thrilled to move.

But as bad as Frazier Hall was, he said, it still holds history.

Today Frazier Hall seems an ugly old duck amid elegant swans of buildings such as the towering Lied Library and a new 184,000-square-foot recreation center.

But as unbelievable as it may seem today, this muchmaligned little building was where it all started how UNLV came to be.