In the fall, Therese Mary Grojean Hall and Coyle Hall will be opened and dedicated as Notre Dame’s newest residence halls, replacing Pangborn Hall and Fisher Hall, respectively. The new residents of Grojean Hall will be students who currently live in Howard Hall, while those in Coyle are presently in Zahm Hall. Both projects began in the summer of 2024 and, after two years of work, are nearing completion.
Coyle Hall is 82,428 square feet with 258 beds and four apartments to be used for rectors, priests in residence, faculty or staff who live in the dormitory.
The male residence hall is named after John and Jill Coyle, who served as co-chairs of the University’s Gift Planning Advancement Committee and are members of the Cavanaugh Council and Badin Guild. John Coyle '94 is a member of the Board of Trustees, and Jill Coyle '89 is a member of the Advisory Council for Undergraduate Experience and the Notre Dame Hesburgh Women of Impact. They are both parents of three Notre Dame alumni.
Grojean Hall is 83,670 square feet with 276 beds and five apartments. It is named after Therese Mary Grojean, the wife of Thomas Grojean Sr. '60.
The Grojeans are parents of four Notre Dame alumni and grandparents of two alumni. They are also known donors to several scholarships at the University, as well as the Grojean Family Fellowship in the Mendoza College of Business and the Thomas and Therese Grojean Family Professorship in Accountancy. Thomas Grojean is also a member of the Mendoza College of Business Advisory Council.
Dan Cook, vice president for facilities design and operations and University architect, spoke about recent updates and the status of the residence halls project, mentioning, “The construction of the halls is going really well. They’re very much on time, on budget.”
The budget per dormitory was $49.15 million, which includes design costs, furniture, construction, landscaping, utilities and the demolition of the old dorms.
“There were two dorms. We’re replacing two dorms. We made a very conscious effort to, rather than doing one at a time, do both at the same time,” Cook shared.
He explained the process for contractors and why they chose to hire from a single company.
“We hired one contractor, Bulley & Andrews, to be responsible for both sites. They don’t have the same teams of contractors working on every building, but one of the advantages we saw to having one person in charge is they hired one masonry contractor for each building,” he stated. Bulley & Andrews is also the contracting company that is working on the renovation of South Dining Hall.
Cook continued to share that the projects have progressed on time and will be ready for use for this fall semester. He explained that the sites are technically near completion from the inside.
“If you were to go onto the fourth floor of both buildings now, they’re basically complete on the inside because they’re all weathered in. The only section that doesn’t have its roof all the way on it is the chapel at Grojean Hall, and so there’s a little bit of waiting for some of the interior work to happen," he explained. The chapel in Coyle is already at the point of finishing touches. Each dorm is also three stories and will have additional attic space.
Cook noted that while the bed count for each dorm is a fixed number, the University is not yet aware of the actual number of students who will be living there in the fall as of now. The two dormitories, he said, were extremely similar in features, with the same amenities, number of common spaces, square footage allocations for kitchens, community rooms and chapels, describing it as, “the same puzzle pieces that get put together.”
In regard to the chapels, Cook shared that, there may be some notable differences between the chapels of the new dorms.
“The chapels are probably the one place where there might be a little bit more of a distinction between the men’s and women’s hall.”
The patron saint of Coyle will be St. Paul, who was previously the patron of Fisher Hall. Grojean Hall’s chapel is dedicated to Mother Théodore Guérin, who was a French nun who arrived in Indiana at the same time as University founder Fr. Edward Sorin.
Over the summer, the dorms will have finishing touches and will be available for hall staff and rectors to make final arrangements. The landscaping, final site work and building connections will also be completed over the summer.
“It’s not going to be a rush. They’ll be finished in a very graceful turnover to allow the University to get everything set up,” Cook stated.
Following this project, there will be a renovation in Lyons Hall, which was announced earlier this year. Howard Hall and Zahm Hall will function as “swing dorms” where they will be housing students during renovations for the foreseeable future.
A final note that Cook shared includes the distinctiveness of these two dorms and how they represent the quads they are located in. For Coyle Hall’s chapel, it follows the features of the South Dining Hall and aligns with the main quad's design.
“Bottom line on these is they’re going really well. I’d say that both of the dorms are unique in different ways, as they’re trying to respond to South Quad. The chapel for Coyle Hall, for example, is right on the main quad, and the windows and the scale of it follow the pattern of the windows and scale of South Dining Hall, so there was a very intentional way to make that chapel to be a prominent religious site on the quad and also be a good neighbor to South Dining Hall,” he explained.
The tower that serves as a notable feature of South Quad was also taken into consideration when locating and building Grojean Hall.
"On Grojean Hall, it’s going to have the tower, which is the main element on that, which is going to serve as a landmark at the end of South Quad by the rock to give some scale, direction and presence," he mentioned. "It speaks across the Quad to the tower at Morrissey and Howard.”
