About a year and a half after it first broke ground, Phi Delta Theta is finally ready to move forward on building a new fraternity house.
The next step will come Tuesday night, when the Greek-letter society will ask the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission for a permit to put fraternity housing at 1326 Highland St. The area’s zoning allows that with a conditional use permit. The planning commission will meet at 7 p.m. at the city conference room in the civic auditorium, 521 Market St.
If approved, Phi Delta Theta would be heading back to familiar surroundings. The Phi Delts lived at 14th Avenue and Highland Street from their founding in 1969 until 1984, when they moved to 1005 Merchant St.
“One of the negatives of the move was that we were not visually connected to the (Emporia State University) campus anymore,” said Phi Delta Theta alum Roger Heineken, who was chapter adviser at the time of the move. “It created a new social dynamic with the fraternity. I’m excited about our ability to come back ... It’ll be easier to run over to a club meeting and be connected to the campus. It doesn’t seem so far away.”
The new house will be a modular design built by KanBuild of Osage City and will hold 18 people. The official groundbreaking was held in October 2005 with hopes of occupying it by fall 2006. That proved optimistic, especially because construction costs had already started to go up in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and rising gas prices.
Besides being larger than the original Highland Street house, the new chapter house will have better life-safety measures, including a state-of-the-art fire alarm and sprinkler system.
Overall, the fraternity chapter has raised about $170,000 for the project, Heineken said. He estimated the project itself at about $450,000, paid for through fund raising, the sale of the old house, grants and other sources. The project is being financed locally through the Emporia State University Foundation.
If the planning commission gives its blessing, dirt work could begin by June and the house could be ready to occupy by the end of September.
daveedailey (anonymous) says...
Here we go again with the ZONING. This is the most useless group of people and time that I have ever seen. Just because it works for one does not mean it will work for all. Hate you guys.......
May 21, 2007 at 4:23 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
bdprotheroe (anonymous) says...
After seeing the title of the article “Fraternity house zoning on agenda for Tuesday,” I was very excited to read about my fraternity’s new chapter house on the Emporia State University campus. But, at the end of the article, I was disappointed to find the first posting to be a negative comment about the miniscule matter zoning.
And thus to “daveedaily” - Thanks so much for dampening what was intended to be a fantastic article about the bright future of a fraternity that gives tirelessly to local charities and excels academically. The article also speaks to campus and community enhancement. Unfortunately, your words have thrown a skewer through the article, and left it on the grill to burn. The journalist, as well as the 400+ alumni and active membership of the Kansas Epsilon Chapter of Phi Delta Theta Fraternity, appreciates your thoughtfulness.
As I have been reading each of the postings on The Emporia Gazette’s website, I have noticed a distasteful trend: a constant barrage of gripes, pessimism and slander. For goodness sakes! Is life that unbearable for so many of you that you must share your hate for the world with the rest of us? Is there not anything in life that provides to you satisfaction and joy? Do you wake up in the morning angered? Do you drive down the street aiming for young children, senior citizens and family pets? Might I suggest therapy, or a bit less FOX News?
Life is full of disappointments, but how you deal with them is truly important. This speaks much to your character and maturity. If you want to see change you need to participate in finding a solution. If you don’t feel you can make a change, or don’t want to put out the effort to make a change, please keep your vividly negative comments to yourself. The rest of us, who recognize the world has imperfections, will continue to find ways to make it a better place.
Intelligent, coherent and productive discourse is the only method to allow good things to come about. Anything else will distract and prevent productivity. Manners; that’s what I am requesting. If you wish to contribute to the blog, please use proper etiquette. Keep in mind it is perfectly acceptable to disagree, in fact that’s the purpose. How you disagree will either leave the readers with respected opinion of you, or a bad taste in their mouths.
And with that, I will leave you will a link to an article about the history, intent and correct usage of blogs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
Brian Protheroe
San Francisco, CA
May 21, 2007 at 6:12 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
CAFEmporia (anonymous) says...
Thank you, Brian. Well said.
Craig French
May 21, 2007 at 7:43 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
daveedailey (anonymous) says...
Brian, you do a nice job on your comments. You need to live here to understand about the zoning. It is like a tsar government. They want to tell everybody what to do and how to live. They are even trying to change the normal event of things of people that live in the county (country). You people that do not live here and have not lived here for several years do not realize what is going on in the Lyon county area. It has gone down hill with the people in governing bodies that we are losing more people all the time. How sad this community has become.
May 22, 2007 at 8:06 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )