The University of Maine plans to replace the oldest building on its campus with a parking lot.

Some students are fighting to stop it.

Crossland Hall was built in 1833, decades before the Orono university was founded, and has since housed dormitories, fraternities, classrooms and more. It’s currently home to the school’s Center for Undergraduate Research and Franco-American Centre.

The building has aged extensively over its 192-year history. Years of deferred maintenance have left “everything behind the walls, under the floors and above the ceiling” in need of immediate repairs, according to David Nordman, UMaine’s director of communications.

“The building envelope, electrical infrastructure and interior are past their useful life and require significant modernization,” Nordman wrote in an email, adding that it also is not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

With construction already planned for a new multipurpose sports facility nearby, the university says the decision to replace Crossland Hall with some 230 parking spaces is both economic and practical.

The school estimated the cost of repairing the building at $10 million, according to Gabriel Paquette, the school’s interim executive vice president for academic affairs and provost. Demolishing the structure and rebuilding it would cost about $6.4 million. Tearing down the building will cost around $100,000.

Demolition is slated to begin in February and will last about a month. The Maine Campus, UMaine’s student newspaper, first reported on the plan to tear down Crossland Hall.

The university does not have to obtain any special permission to demolish the building because it is not a registered landmark or historic building.

Still, some students have mounted an effort to save Crossland Hall. A student petition urging the school to cancel the demolition had nearly 1,300 signatures by Thursday afternoon.

After meeting regularly inside Crossland Hall for decades, the Franco-American Centre will be temporarily relocated to Libby Hall on the other side of campus.

Founded to protect Maine’s Franco-American culture after forced assimilation in the early 1900s, UMaine’s Franco-American Centre members warn the group’s identity will be stripped if Crossland is demolished — not to mention the piece of university history that will be lost forever.

“This ill-conceived plan also endangers the Franco American Centre, which has called Crossland Hall home for decades,” UMaine student Alex Emery wrote in the petition. “The survival of the Franco-American Centre and Crossland Hall are intimately linked.”