Sig Ep physical plant to undergo construction

By Katie Gonzalez, The Dartmouth Staff

Published on Friday, May 7, 2010

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The physical plant of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity will undergo major reconstruction over the upcoming Summer term, in an expansion project costing an estimated $2.1 million, according to documents on the renovation filed with the Town of Hanover. Additionally, Phi Delta Alpha fraternity will reopen its doors for occupants over the Summer for the first time since the Jan. 10 fire that forced the closure of its physical plant, Phi Delt President Victor Galson ’11 said.

The Sig Ep physical plant will be demolished and construction will begin on a three-story chapter house in June, according to the documents. Occupancy of the physical plant will resume in January 2011.

“Sig Ep decided to renovate because the physical structure of the house is so outdated that we’re limited in what we can do in our brotherhood,” Sig Ep President Tyler Ford ’11 said. “A lot of work we do is maintenance.”

The new building will provide bedrooms for 26 residents — an increase from the 21 current residents — and will include an upgrade to the sanitary sewer services, improvements to parking and changes to the storm water system, according to house manager Stewart Gray ’11.

“The purpose of the project is to address the long-term safety, maintenance and use of the site by [Sig Ep], and provide a building that complies with current building and life-safety codes,” Russell Rohloff of Pathways Consulting, LLC, wrote in a note submitted to Vicki Smith, senior planner at the Town of Hanover Planning and Zoning.

Pathways Consulting will serve as the engineer group on the project.

Rebuilding efforts will also include a bigger chapter room for brotherhood meetings and programming events, in addition to a “larger and more sophisticated” library, Ford said. Although the Zoning Board and Planning Board have already approved the project, approval from the building inspector is needed before construction begins, Smith said.

All public areas of the new physical plant will be completely handicap-accessible, according to Gray. New additions include a ramp in the basement, a ramp in front of the house, a lift and a handicap-accessible bedroom on the first floor.

“This [current] house predates any kind of accessibilities act,” Gray said. “We’re seeing this as an opportunity to push forward and build a fully accessible house, which we really just haven’t been able to have before.”

Construction will only occur between the hours of 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, with occasional work on Saturdays, according to planning and zoning board documents. Although Rohloff wrote that there would likely be “no substantive changes to road surfaces or traffic flow patterns or volumes,” a portion of the project implementation will affect 10 Choate Road, property owned by the College, according to the documents.

Gray said he does not anticipate that construction will be a serious issue over the Summer.

“There’s going to be some noise and some machinery, but I think that we will work to keep them at an absolute minimum for the rest of the people,” Gray said. “We’re sort of fortunate that we’re not in the same physical location as [Kappa Kappa Kappa fraternity] or [Beta Alpha Omega fraternity] or [Zeta Psi fraternity] — we’re sort of tucked off at the end of Webster Avenue.”

Sophomore members will live on the fourth floor of Lord residence hall in the Gold Coast residence cluster over the Summer, according to Ford.

Because construction efforts will not be completed by Fall rush, Sig Ep officers are working with College administrators to find an alternative venue for rush events, according to Ford.

“We’ll go through the rush process like normal, and we expect the process to be like any other year,” Ford said.

The original building plans had called for 17 parking spaces, but the number was reduced to 13, the documents indicated. Four spaces will be on-site — including one handicap-accessible parking spot — and nine spaces will be located on adjacent property, the “back lot” that Sig Ep currently leases from the College, Gray said.

The decision to rebuild the physical plant over Summer term was determined in early April by a vote from Sig Ep’s Alumni Volunteer Corporation, according to Gray. The construction will be funded by loans, room rent and a capital campaign, Ford said.

“The capital campaign is a campaign to advertise to our alumni the need for a new physical plant,” he said. “We’ve been soliciting donations from Dartmouth alums and Sig Ep nationals. In addition to the money from constructions, part of the capital campaign is for a scholarship for brothers and a fund that will support maintenance for the house.”

Members of Phi Delt anticipate that the reconstruction of their physical plant after the fire will be finished “maybe a week or two earlier” than graduation, according to Galson. All members of the sophomore pledge class who are on campus for Summer term will live in the house, Galson said.

Because members did not know that the physical plant would be open for Summer residence, many of them leased houses in the Hanover area, according to Galson. These sophomores must now find other individuals to lease the houses in their place.

“They still might have to pay part of the lease [if they can’t get anyone to live in the off-campus house], but the house is going to try to help with that,” Galson said.

Although Phi Delt’s physical plant will host the same number of people — 25 occupants — minor changes are being made as part of the renovation process, such as refurbishing a stained glass window in the great hall, Galson said. Phi Delt’s audio system will also be improved, according to Galson.

“We’re spending about $10, 000 on a new audio system for the outside of the house, the great hall and the basement and on a theater system in the basement,” Galson said. “We will be playing music on frat row soon enough.”

Very few changes will be made to the physical plant in terms of design and layout, John Alekna ’10, former Phi Delt president, said in an e-mail to The Dartmouth. As a result of reconstruction, however, a new steel frame was retro-fitted into the house and new furniture and appliances will be installed, according to Alekna.

Tri-Kap considered renovating its physical plant over sophomore Summer, but the process will likely not begin until the following Spring, Tri-Kap President Cameron Sharman ’11 said.

“The house was built in 1923,” he said. “It’s 87 years old, so it is time to upgrade.”

Preliminary plans include expanding the basement, adding bathrooms and “pretty much gutting the second and third floor,” Sharman said. The number of members who could live in the house would increase from 18 to 23, according to Sharman.

The renovations will cost a projected $1 million to $1.5 million, which Sharman anticipates would be acquired through alumni board fundraising and loans, he said.