UNMC and Nebraska Medicine colleagues who walk past the former home of the Munroe-Meyer Institute and the connected J.P. Lord school building will notice some activity beginning this week.
Demolition crews will begin with the exterior of the J.P. Lord building, then move to the interior. Recyclable materials will be pulled out during the process, which is expected to take at least a few weeks for the J.P. Lord building.
After the J.P. Lord building has been demolished, similar work will begin on the structures that formerly housed the Munroe-Meyer Institute, the Hattie B. Munroe and C.L. Meyer buildings. Demolition will start on the north and continue to the south end of the site. In the meantime, crews will continue to isolate utilities to the facility including gas, water, steam and chilled water from the buildings to prepare for the final phase of the demolition.
In April, a farewell event was held at the former Munroe-Meyer Institute’s home. MMI now is located at 6902 Pine St., near the University of Nebraska at Omaha Scott Campus.
Pedestrian traffic near the site, located south of Farnam Street between 44th Street and Saddle Creek Road, will continue as it does today. Earlier this spring, sidewalks were closed and removed to prepare for the demolition.
After demolition is complete, the site will be regraded in preparation for future construction. Depending on weather conditions and crews’ progress, ground cover will be planted by the end of 2022.
The land currently is reserved for Nebraska Medicine and UNMC’s Project NExT. Project NExT is the proposed multibillion-dollar federal disaster response center and state-of-the-art medical research and training facility planned for the Nebraska Medical Center campus.
Project NExT will be funded through a public-private partnership between local, state and federal governments and private and philanthropic support. So far, there have been hundreds of millions of dollars in financial commitments from the state, city and philanthropists to make the project possible. There is currently no groundbreaking date scheduled for what could possibly include multiple buildings associated with the project.