Canadians Go Greek: the source for Canadian Chapters

The Ubyssey, University of British Columbia Student Paper - August 14, 2002

by Chris Shepherd/News Editor

The fraternities on campus will be moving next summer to a newly constructed Fraternity Village, further down Wesbrook Mall and closer to Osbourne Gym. Seven of the eight on-campus fraternities have been leasing land from UBC, and those leases will be concluding over the next two to twelve years. However, the fraternities and the university have already began negotiations on a new agreement.

One fraternity, Beta Theta Pi, owns the land that its building is on and will be staying at its current location. John Fang, president of Beta Theta Pi, is pleased that the fraternity will be staying where it is. "We think the current location is better compared to where they're being moved to," said Fang. "It's closer to campus." Beta Theta Pi was given a chance to join the Fraternity Village but turned the offer down.

"We thought it made no sense to trade in a free-hold ownership for a lease," Fang explained. The fraternities that are moving will enter into a 99 year lease with UBC. Andrew Wallace—public relations officer for the Inter-Fraternity Council, an organisation that promotes fraternities and deals with inter-fraternity issues—says that the fraternities are looking forward to the new sites.

He described some of the current locations as being "a little dilapidated," and that the new locations will be better at drawing new members to the fraternities. The new location is beside the campus RCMP station farther down Wesbrook Mall from their current location.

The new buildings at the Fraternity Village will all be built by Polygon Construction Management Limited. Only one company is being used to do the construction to ensure that the buildings will be done on time and they will be consistent with one another. Polygon provided the fraternities with some basic specifications to start with and they then discussed specific features with Polygon and have recently signed off on the plans.

Construction is scheduled to begin within 30 days says Neil Chrystal, senior vice-president marketing at Polygon. Polygon will also be developing the location that the fraternities are be vacating. The company will lease the vacated land from UBC and then build housing there.

Plans call for structures similar to Winslow Commons, which Polygon built last year behind the University Village. While Chrystal describes the housing that will be built as affordable for students, he also described the planned buyer profile as being faculty and staff from UBC and parents who provide housing for their children going through the university system.

The fraternities will move into the Fraternity Village as the new buildings are completed, which is expected to be in time for the beginning of the 2003-2004 school year.