Fraternities initiate 'University Village'

By Joseph Barrios

Arizona Daily Wildcat

Groundbreaking for two new fraternity houses is set to begin in November as part of a plan to establish a "University Village" area.

New houses for the Delta Tau Delta and Kappa Sigma fraternities are scheduled to have members living in them by fall 1995.

The houses will be the first of new facilities built in an area dedicated to becoming a conceptual "town center" for the university campus, said Dan Maxwell, interim director of Student Programs. The plan is meant to bring the campus community closer together.

Both fraternities are anxious to get things started after a few years of waiting.

"Building a new house is a once in a lifetime thing. We had a lot of apathy in the house. Now, everybody's pumped," said Dan Divjak, president of DTD.

Divjak said there's some skepticism among members because construction of the house was delayed in the fall of 1990 because of financial problems.

The old DTD house was torn down when the Arizona Health Sciences Center expanded its facilities. Divjak said the University of Arizona paid the fraternity about $800,000 to use the land, and it is now a parking lot for the hospital.

Alumni donations, financing and the money from the UA will pay for the million dollars needed to build the house and another $250,000 to furnish it. The university owns the proposed plot, and will lease it to DTD for 30 years, said Divjak.

The building will house 56 residents. The new house will be located at 1330 E. First St., near the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Student Center. Members currently reside in a house at 1550 N. Vine Ave., about a mile away from the center of campus.

Kappa Sigma Fraternity began planning construction of its new house in 1987. It took almos t six years to find a location for the house that would fit in with the University Village Area plan. In 1990 the University Village Plan was added to a 1988 comprehensive plan to direct campus expansion.

The house will cost about $1.2 million, with money raised from alumni donations, said George Jenson, Kappa Sigma alumnus advisor. It will be located at 1425 E. First St.. Forty-one people will live in the building, he said.

Kappa Sigma moved out of its old house at 430 N. Cherry Ave. after a UA police officer was shot and killed at a fraternity party in 1991. The officer's family asked the fraternity to move out of the house.

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