Last Thursday, crews started the slow goodbye to Crosley Tower on the University of Cincinnati’s Uptown campus, beginning a careful, floor-by-floor dismantling of the 16-story concrete landmark. The work is staged to keep dust and vibration in check and is expected to run into next year as UC clears the site for a new science and research building. The process has already split students and alumni between fond nostalgia and a sense of overdue relief.
As reported by The News Record, heavy lifts and scaffolding rolled in after months of prep work, and crews began peeling away the top floors last week. The outlet’s coverage shows cranes hovering over the site while students gather nearby to watch the early stages of the teardown.
“Taking down a structure as iconic as Crosley Tower requires precision, planning, and respect for its place in UC’s history,” Bryan Ramsey, project executive for Skanska, told The News Record. Ramsey said the team will remove sections piece by piece to limit impacts on nearby classrooms, residences, and Burnet Woods.
How Crews Will Take It Apart
Skanska is leading the deconstruction in partnership with O’Rourke Wrecking Company and THP Limited engineering, according to the university’s news office. Chris Hopper, Skanska’s Cincinnati executive vice president and general manager, has emphasized that safety and keeping disruption to neighbors to a minimum are the top priorities. A University of Cincinnati release outlines the engineered, top-down approach and details the environmental controls crews will use.
Built as an Engineering Feat
Crosley Tower was completed in 1969 after an 18-day continuous concrete pour that made it one of the largest single-pour concrete structures in the country. That monolithic construction, together with the building’s thick walls and shallow footing, is what planners say makes renovation impractical and demolition slow and deliberate. Local reporting and university materials have documented its unusual construction and distinctive four-wing silhouette. WVXU has detailed the tower’s history and engineering legacy.
Campus Reaction
Plenty of people are not quite ready to watch the concrete come down. A student-run Crosley Tower Appreciation Club has morphed into a sizable online community, and alumni, along with DAAP students, have shared projects and tributes that celebrate the tower’s stark geometry. Sophie Lietz, who helped launch the appreciation group, told WVXU she loves the building’s “bold and unapologetic” style, even as the university keeps moving toward its replacement plans. A remembrance piece looked back at the tower’s mixed legacy.
What Comes Next for the Site
The university has approved roughly $47.3 million for remediation and demolition of Crosley Tower and the adjacent Clifton Court garage, with the contract covering hazardous-materials abatement for lead paint and asbestos. An April 2025 board release from the University of Cincinnati spells out the budget and environmental work. Plans call for a roughly $215 million, 200,000-square-foot STEM education facility to rise in the tower’s place, with construction and occupancy estimates landing in the late 2020s, according to Xavier Newswire.
For now, Crosley’s concrete ribs will disappear one floor at a time, in a long and very public process that university leaders and contractors say they plan to manage carefully. As crews keep chipping away, students and nearby residents are already stockpiling photos and stories of a building that has both divided and defined the campus skyline for more than half a century.
