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Cranes
occupy both Stadium Drive and the Delta Kappa Epsilon lawn as
Bryant-Denny Stadium expansion continues. Gorgas Hall, the
former home of the UAPD, was razed over the holidays. |
Oldest frat house on campus hemmed in by construction, will be razed this summer
January 12, 2006
Construction
of the new Delta Kappa Epsilon house across the street from its
soon-to-be razed house has been delayed, which means the fraternity will
be without a house next year, a DKE official said. The
new DKE house will now open in fall 2007 instead of this fall, as
originally planned. John McNeil, the UA DKE chapter's corporation
adviser, said plans for the new DKE house haven't been finalized yet. Construction
on the new DKE house will likely start in March or April, he said. The
current DKE house, which is the oldest fraternity house on campus, will
be demolished just after the semester ends, McNeil said. The house is
being razed to make way for a grand entrance to Bryant-Denny Stadium. McNeil
said the fraternity is weighing its options for a temporary house. At
the least, the fraternity needs a place where members can eat three
meals a day and gather at night for meetings, he said. UA officials are
looking at potential campus sites, but the fraternity is also looking
off campus, he said. Students
may notice that there's only debris where Gorgas Hall, the old home of
the UA Police Department, used to stand on University Boulevard and
Stadium Drive. The new DKE house will be built there. Gorgas was
demolished just after Christmas, said Tim Leopard, director of UA
construction administration. Leopard
said the fraternity decided to delay construction on the new house until
May, so it wasn't necessary to raze Gorgas in October as originally
scheduled. The
DKE house, which was built in 1916, awaits its doom surrounded by
fences, cranes and other signs of heavy construction work. Some
DKEs who live in the house said the construction going on around it
isn't a major distraction. "The
biggest thing that made me mad is that the [Million Dollar Band] didn't
get to walk by before the games," at the end of the fall semester,
said David Hawley, a junior majoring in finance. "The front yard is
gone." Miller
Terry, a junior majoring in finance, said limited parking - not so much
the noise - is the main problem with construction on three sides of the
house. Most of the parking DKE house residents previously used has been
blocked off by the stadium construction, he said. Both
Hawley and Terry said they wouldn't want to live in temporary housing
next year. Terry
said most of his classes will be in the business school, and he would
rather live in an apartment than in a temporary fraternity house far
from his classes. "It
will just be more of a hassle," Hawley said. Meanwhile,
the UAPD has settled into the 70-year-old New Hall, an old dorm behind
the President's Mansion, as a temporary police station. Leopard
said construction on a new UAPD site will begin this summer and is
tentatively scheduled to be complete in November 2007. The location of
the new police site is still being finalized, he said. Plans will be
presented to the UA System Board of Trustees in February, he said.