This article was posted with written permission from Roger Showley, Reporter for UT San Diego.
SDSU builds first new frat house in 40 years
By Roger Showley/UT San Diego
Theta Chi, a pre-Civil War national fraternity that got kicked off campus six years ago, has begun construction of San Diego State University's first new frat house in about 40 years.
When completed next August, the $4 million, 24,000-square-foot building will have room for 38 live-in members, underground parking, a catering kitchen, game and TV room and a library.
A library and frat house may not belong in the same sentence, based on visions of "Animal House" chaos.
But that's one of the amenities local chapter president Cody Rominger, 21, is looking forward to after having brought the 95-member organization back in good standing in 2012.
"Our vision from the beginning was to be a balanced fraternity that puts academics first," said Rominger, a finance major from Davis who's planning to start his own farm-related business when he graduates next spring.
Theta Chi's GPA stands at 3.2, the highest of any SDSU fraternity, and it has been honored at the national level for its membership orientation programs.
The three-story house at 5505 Lindo Paseo was designed by NOAA Group architects and is being constructed by R&R Construction. Site excavation has been completed for the parking garage and work on foundation footings is under way.
The exterior recalls some of SDSU's 1930s Spanish revival architecture with red tile roofs, arches and colonnades.
Inside features will include a dining hall and a special treat for frat officers, six private suites on the top floor with the president and vice president getting their own private bathrooms.
"It's really kind of a reward and incentive to encourage leadership in the chapter," Rominger said.
It's a far cry from the lowly beginnings in plain, post-World War II homes Theta Chi occupied when it became SDSU's first national fraternity in 1947. Its most recent home was traded for two-campus-owned houses property, which were demolished to make way for new construction. The fraternity is occupying Sigma Chi's former house since that fraternity was kicked off campus a couple of years ago.
David DeVol, past national president of Theta Chi and former SDSU alumni president, remembers the group's first permanent frat house opened in 1955 and recalls "Animal House" antics -- though he never saw a dead horse or someone ride up the stairs on a motorcycle as in the 1978 iconic movie starring John Belushi.
But he also recalls the lifelong friendship and leadership experience of his college years and thinks the new fraternity house will be best on campus and one of the largest if not the largest on the West Coast.
"All fraternities have more to offer than the reputation would suggest," he said.
Live-in fraternity members will pay $750 monthly, including room and board, he said, and they also will pay extra "parlor fees" to cover cleaning and maintenance.
"I think that what the alumni have given us is incredible," Rominger said. "I think it's going to be really a hallmark on campus and really a jewel of Greek life at San Diego State."
Theta Chi was founded in 1856 at Norwich University, a military school in Vermont. Many early members were Civil War veterans and it continues to attract past and future servicemen as members, DeVol said. Its primary national charity is the USO and its active members and alumni engage in numerous community service activities in San Diego.
Since he served as founding president to reinstate the fraternity four years ago, Rominger said, Theta Chi has developed strong health and safety guidelines and held programs to control under-age drinking, drug use, sexual assaults and mental issues, such as thoughts of suicide.
"To be frank, I can't really speak with great detail about what came before I came to campus," he said. "What I do know is every fraternity that's ever been at SDSU has been kicked off for one reason or another."
He said the presence of a graduate student adviser and house manager will help clamp down on tendencies to mayhem -- and to keep the brand-new property from being trashed at the first mixer.
"We know where our chapter was in the past and that it only took a couple of missteps by a couple of bad apples -- and it's almost been like a motivating force for us to take that seriously," he said.
Unfortunately, Rominger will have graduated by the time the new house opens. But he and other alumni will get a chance at a sleepover before the returning brothers move in.
"The true reward for me has been building this fraternity and truly knowing my efforts and efforts of the other brothers who got the fraternity off the ground have made a difference," he said.