University officials failed to tell GW fraternity homeowners of their ideas about redeveloping the Greek-letter property before issuing the most recent draft of the campus plan to the Advisory Neighborhood Commission Wednesday.
Jeremy Rohen, House Corporation president for Delta Tau Delta, said a Nov. 18 article about the ANC’s meeting to review the campus plan was the first he heard about the University’s desire to acquire the fraternity houses on the 2100 block of G Street. Rohen said no one has approached the fraternity with an offer, and he said he could not comment any further at this time.
GW President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg said the part of the campus plan that refers to the fraternity houses is in the most preliminary of stages.
I just started thinking aloud, Trachtenberg said.
He said University officials eventually would like to sit down with the fraternity members and their corporations to discuss the possibility of alternative housing.
Other fraternity members who live in houses on G Street were unavailable for comment.
According to the campus plan, the University is interested in using the area where the fraternity houses are currently located for academic use. Trachtenberg said academic use implies many things and said no definitive plans have been made yet.
I’m musing, he said.
Trachtenberg said the University plans to build a student village across the street from the intended Health and Wellness Center at 23rd and G streets.
In the village, he said he envisions a lower level with houses similar to the row of restaurants on Red Lion row at 2000 Pennsylvania Ave. Trachtenberg said the University might set aside the row houses in the residence hall for Greek-letter organizations.
A residence hall with built-in Greek-letter houses is the closest an urban campus will come to having a fraternity row, said Mike Gargano, assistant vice president of Student Academic and Support Services.
He said the village would be great for sororities and the historically black organizations in the National Pan Hellenic Council that currently have little or no access to specialized housing.
As for the fraternity chapters that already own homes, Gargano said he was uncertain.
I’m not sure how quickly they’d want to give up that space, he said.
