Condon Hall (University of Washington)

John T. Condon Hall is an academic building of the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. The building formerly housed the UW School of Law. The hall was named after John T. Condon, the first dean of the School of Law.

The building was constructed in 1973. The architecture company Joyce / Copeland / Vaughan / Nordfors, Architects served as associate architects as Condon Hall. In 1974, the University of Washington School of Law moved from the former Condon Hall, which was renamed Gowen Hall. When the law school moved there, the space available to it increased.

The university planned for Condon to house classrooms, a moot court, seminar spaces, and a main reading room. The project's first phase had 129,000 square feet (12,000 m²) of space. The budget for general construction was $3,814,900. The budget for furnishings was $250,000. The first phase included a law library and classroom space for 500 pupils. The university planned to construct a second phase, which would have increased the size of the building to 207,000 square feet (19,200 m²). The second phase was supposed to have space for 50 post-graduate students and an addition to the law library that would double its size.

In 1982 an economic recession occurred, forcing the university to cancel its plans. The law school gradually increased in size, and Condon became too small for the law school. Various departments of the law school were forced to occupy other buildings.

The Washington State Legislature, on two occasions, failed to provide the funds to expand the building. At a later point the university decided that it could build a new administrative services building and then store extra administrative services that were previously spread across the university campus at Condon Hall. The university would use the cost savings to allow it to build a new law school. For a period of over one decade, officials from the law school advocated for a replacement for the Condon building.

In 2003 the UW School of Law moved out of Condon, and settled into William H. Gates Hall. The university planned to use Condon as "surge space" after the law school moved out. That means that departments or offices would be temporarily located at Condon while their permanent facilities underwent renovation. Colleen Pike, the UW principal higher education facilities planner, said that the UW campus had no other "surge space" facilities. Once Condon Hall was emptied, the university planned to begin the renovations of Guggenheim and Johnson halls.

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