Lyons Hall will become the Lyons community in Zahm Hall for the 2026-2027 academic year as the dorm undergoes its first major renovation in over a decade.
Hall rector Karla Diaz broke the news to residents at a Tuesday meeting in the hall’s All Souls’ Chapel. Associate vice president for Residential Life Karen Kennedy also spoke at the gathering and answered questions about the transition.
Lyons Hall opened in 1927 as the eighth residence hall at Notre Dame, and today, it is the fifth-oldest dorm in continuous use. It has been renovated twice: in 1974 to welcome its first female residents, and in 2013 to add a kitchen and communal spaces.
Lyons Hall has lounges with kitchens on all five of its floors, but the dorm does not have any study rooms. Lyons also lacks an elevator and air conditioning and is not wheelchair accessible.
After the renovation was announced, cheers could be heard, but reactions to the news were varied.
Sophomore Maria Aboujaoude, one of two co-presidents of the hall’s executive team, expressed optimism that the residents would retain their shared identity during the transition.
“It’s definitely a shock to hear it, but I know that our girls have a very strong community here … We’ll be able to carry that wherever we live, and especially bring it back,” Aboujaoude said.
She also discussed potential changes a renovation could bring to the physical building.
“I’m really curious to see what the dorm will look like, whether they’re keeping it identical to the original look, or how different it’ll be, because it holds so much character, and I hope other girls have the chance to experience the same kind of character it has [now],” Aboujaoude said.
In an email from director of Residential Life Dan Rohmiller to hall residents scheduled to send after the meeting, the move was specified as an effort to “modernize the mechanical systems and improve the community building spaces.”
Other residents spoke to the change in lifestyle that could accompany the physical move out of the building and into a North Quad dorm.
“I’m just grateful that we’re not fully getting into a new dorm,” junior Molly Fink said. “[It’s] going to be weird being a North Dining Hall person though, that’s going to kill. Not opposed, but just a different lifestyle.”
The renovation was attributed to the University’s residential master plan, which went into effect in 2015 and was reaffirmed last year. Since its inception, seven residence halls have been renovated, all among the 10 oldest dorms on campus. Lyons Hall is the first student residence to undergo a renovation since Breen-Phillips during the 2023-2024 academic year.
The University has traditionally designated a “swing hall” to serve as temporary accommodations for displaced communities. Pangborn Hall housed four communities of temporary residents between 2016 and 2020. The distinction passed to Zahm Hall in 2021, which currently hosts the Fisher Hall community before its move to Coyle Hall.
The community will move back to Lyons Hall for the 2027-2028 academic year, which will correspond with the hall’s 100th anniversary.
In the meantime, the community will begin preparations to relocate. Rohmiller’s email explained that room picks for the new building would be made, and residents would have the chance to tour the building in the spring. A focus group composed of Lyons Hall residents and organized through Residential Life was also promised.
“I love Lyons so much … the carpet floors and the stucco walls, it feels so much more like a home than the apartments of the newer building style,” Fink said.
Fink hopes to be a resident assistant next school year for the Lyons community in Zahm. As a senior, Fink aims to cultivate the same feeling of the current Lyons community for the incoming freshmen who will have not seen Lyons.
“It’s going to be our job to be like ‘this is what home feels like, and you’ll be able to get that here [in Zahm],’ and then hopefully even feel it more when you can go back to Lyons.”
