From left, Kansas University student body president Jessie Pringle and KU Memorial Unions Corporation Board president Lauren Arney remove a brass plaque from the wall of KU's Burge Union at the building's decommissioning ceremony Tuesday. The building will close permanently on March 11 and be demolished sometime later this spring.

A group of current and former Kansas University Memorial Unions employees, students and staff gathered in the Burge Union Tuesday to bid the building goodbye.

The doors will be locked for good at the end of the day Friday, with demolition of the 1979 building scheduled to begin around the beginning of April.

About three dozen people attended the ceremony, which also honored the building’s namesake, the late Frank Burge, the longtime Unions director. Coke in glass bottles, a goodbye cake and Munchers Bakery mini cinnamon rolls — a treat Burge was known to share on campus — were on the refreshment table.

Students Jessie Pringle, student body president, and Lauren Arney, president of the Memorial Unions Corporation Board, ceremoniously removed from the wall the Burge Union’s dedication plaque, to be saved and ultimately displayed in a replacement union scheduled to be constructed adjacent to the current site by fall 2018.

“Students have always been instrumental in the direction and funding of the unions at KU,” Pringle said.

She said student fees and input helped fund and guide the original Kansas Union and the Burge, and will do the same for the future new Central District union, a name for which has yet to be chosen.

The Burge Union, shown on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2015, is slated to be razed and rebuilt and part of Kansas University's Central District redevelopment plans.

KU historian Mike Reid, recently retired as director of public affairs for KU Memorial Unions, recalled when the Burge opened — just in time for the first day of fall classes in 1979. KU Bookstore employees slept in the union, working overnight to get the shelves and products ready to open the next day.

The nondescript brick building has provided many services through the years but has never really been maximized, a key reason it’s being razed in favor of a more usable building.

“That is one problem we’ve always had with this building, is recognition of it,” Reid said. “It just never took off … it doesn’t stand out at all.”

Renderings of what the new union will look like have yet to be released, but there is a plan for what will be inside.

The Burge closing sets off a musical chairs-like shuffling of a number of offices and services that have called the union home. Some will be coming back to the new building, others won’t.

According to KU Memorial Unions:

• University Career Services will have temporary locations at Anschutz Library and the Kansas Union. The office will move to Summerfield Hall in January 2017.

• The Student Veterans Lounge will temporarily open in the Kansas Union beginning in June, then move into Summerfield Hall in January 2017.

• The Student Housing Apartment Living office has already moved to Jayhawker Towers B-001.

• Starting Friday, KU IT Help Desk services will be directed to Daisy Hill Commons, between Self and Oswald halls.

• The Crimson Cafe will close permanently, but the nearby DeBruce Center will have a cafeteria and dining room when it opens, expected in late April.

• KU Bookstore’s Burge location also will close permanently, though the DeBruce Center also will sell some KU memorabilia in its Original Rules Gift Shop.

In addition to a ballroom and other meeting rooms, the new Central District union will house:

• Legal Services for Students, which will move out of the Burge and into Green Hall during construction.

• The Sexual Assault Prevention and Education Center and the Emily Taylor Center for Women and Gender Equity, which currently are housed in other buildings.

• A Reflection Room for prayer and meditation.

• A coffee shop, convenience store and lounge space.