TCU is prepared to begin its next phase of construction on campus with the building of the new Greek houses.
The construction will include six sorority and five fraternity homes, said Harold Leeman, the director of facility planning and construction.
The houses could be a combination of two to three chapters living in one building, he said. Each Greek organization would be separated by an elevator, and each house would have its own laundry rooms, chapter rooms and living rooms.
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Leeman said that the construction of the houses will take place following the developments of the new parking garage and the parking lot in the Greek.
The current construction plan is the garage will be finished in 2016, the women will move into the new sorority houses in 2017 and the men will move into the new fraternity houses in 2018.
“We need the women to live in the sorority houses while we are building, so we are going to build in the parking lot,” said Mike Russel, assistant vice chancellor for student affairs. “That’s why we will build the parking garage first.”
The houses will feature unique brick and roof patterns, as well as cast stone letters of each Greek organization to distinguish the houses from one another, Leeman said.
“They will have the flavor of TCU,” Leeman said.
He added the houses will feature the TCU yellow brick as well as accent colors.
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Russel said the construction plans call for four story houses with a mix of single and double rooms, and the fourth floor will be designated for the leaders of each chapter.
“The fourth floor of the buildings will have the leadership suites, so presidents and vice-presidents that will be living there will have just a little bit nicer accommodations than the other members,” Russel said.
The houses will be built in order to allow space for all Greek members that intend to live in their respective chapter houses.
“Men will have about the same number of people as they have right now. Women will have slightly more beds in their chapter rooms,” Russel said. “The major difference is we now give people an opportunity to have a couple vacancies.”
Despite the potential for houses to have extra rooms, Russel said he expects for all rooms to be filled.
“We are going to expect to keep them full,” Russel said. “[If] we give them 28 beds, we expect 28 bodies in there.”
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Russel added the houses will feature larger chapter rooms, where each fraternity and sorority will be given the opportunity to customize the rooms to their satisfaction with the supervision of the school.
“We are going to give them empty chapter rooms, and they get to design those,” he said. “They will have a fair amount of latitude of what they will look like inside.”
The process will be “carefully scripted” during the designing of the chapter rooms, Russel said.
The map of the new Greek has yet to be released. Leeman said this is because money can still be a potential setback in the Greek construction project.
“There’s things to do to get into budget, and I think we will get there,” Leeman said. “We will find a way to make it so it fits.”
