Fraternity house demolition delayed until next week

Displaying shattered windows, a caved-in roof and a general sense of being beyond repair, the old Lambda Chi Alpha house, which has stood for more than 80 years, has been spared a few more days until it will be flattened into a pile of rubble.

The demolition for the small white house located at 908 Osteopathy St. was scheduled for Tuesday morning but was delayed by the snowstorm. The owner of Jeremy Hettinger Construction said his crew likely will begin the demolition next week when some of the snow clears.

Contrary to rumors, the house was not condemned, said Lambda Chi Alpha president, junior Dan Bellavia. He said a small section of the roof caved in last summer and it would have cost more to repair the roof and bring the house back up to code than it would to demolish.

Alumnus Chris Wiedmeyer, Phi Psi Zeta housing corporation treasurer, said the five-person home was built in 1928, but wasn't adopted by Lambda Chi Alpha until 1989, three years after the chapter was established. The current Lambda Chi Alpha house at 900 Osteopathy

St. is next door to the soon to be demolished building.

Prior to the scheduled demolition, Lambda Chi Alpha cleared the house of appliances, furniture, memorabilia, anything else deemed significant and its copper wiring to make a little extra money, Bellavia said.

"It was kind of a hassle at the beginning to move everything over there like awards, composites, and hang it up in our new chapter house," Bellavia said. "We bought a storage shed to store a lot of couches and things like that for when we build the new house."

Bellavia said the five men who signed on to live at the house this year broke their contract with the housing corporation and moved to different off-campus locations.

The fraternity plans to construct a two-story duplex on the site of the old house. The duplex would have two four-room sections and would house eight people. The funding for the new housing will come from alumni contributions, fundraisers and an approximate $200 monthly rent that is paid on the two fraternity properties going directly to the housing corporation.

Lambda Chi Alpha currently is finalizing a loan requested by alumni to be approved by Alliance Bank. Bellavia said the bank's initial concern probably was the construction's short time frame with an August deadline and "giving a fraternity that much money." He said the loan should go through sometime this week.

Wiedmeyer said the bank is just finishing up a few final business matters with the loan.

"We came pretty prepared, and we've got a substantial amount of money, obviously, to make it feasible for the bank," Wiedmeyer said. "It took a little bit of discussion back and forth to make sure we were in a good position to do that, for the bank to back the loan."

Wiedmeyer said he expects the construction for the new duplex, which will be done by Jeremy Hettinger Construction, to begin in February.