Lambda Chi Alpha begins relocation plans

Lambda Chi Alpha has been making the most of its house since before World War II. Members of the square-shaped fraternity have had to think outside the box in order to keep the building — which at one point was used to store books — up to snuff with the other greek houses on campus.

"So one guy lives up there," said Tyler Vaughan, a senior advertising major and Lambda Chi president, as he pointed to a bed hanging from the ceiling during a quick tour of the house. Then he pointed across the room to a platform with a couch on it with just enough crawl space underneath for a brother to fit a twin bed. "And another guy lives there."

But the fraternity's days of coping with tight living arrangements are numbered.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Board of Regents recently approved a deal struck between Lambda Chi and the university. UNL will get the property at 1345 R Street, and Lambda Chi will get property at 1645 R Street, as well as $193,000, to build a new house.

UNL plans to level the square fraternity building along with the current Culture Center and convert the properties into visitor parking, said Chris Jackson, vice chancellor of business and finance at UNL.

"It's a win-win for (Lambda Chi) and the university," Jackson said.

While going from the smallest to the newest greek house on campus will be an ample switch, there are some things about the old, cramped building the members will miss.

Many of the rooms still display mementos from former members that the new residents make their own, like a room with a thousand beer bottle tops glued all over it that Vaughan remembered seeing when he was 16 years old while he helped his older brother move in.

"If you keep it clean, it's a pretty nice house," Vaughan said. "It is what it is."

UNL has been eyeing the property Lambda Chi sits on since before its current members started kindergarten. Steve Wiley, an attorney and former Lambda Chi house core member, started negotiating a land swap with UNL in 1982.

In the past two years, since UNL finalized plans for a new culture center, the talks between the two organizations became more vigorous.

The Lambda Chi building has been in desperate need of renovations, Wiley said, but the fraternity didn't want to put money into a building UNL wanted to buy for its own.

"We knew the university had a long-term plan for our land," Wiley said. "We're very pleased with the parcel of land we've been offered… (Our members) have a longer walk to class, and it's less central to the core of downtown, but those are things we were willing to give up."

In the current house, Lambda Chi only has room for 34 members. Wiley said the new house, although plans haven't been finalized, will hold closer to 50. And a nicer house would also help court incoming freshmen and entice upperclassmen to keep living in the house.

"We have a C- building in a B+ world," Wiley said when comparing Lambda Chi's current building to other houses on campus. "Now we're going to have an A+ building."

Sean Prince, a freshman general studies major living in Lambda Chi, described the house as "a little old but a lot of fun."

According to the contract between Lambda Chi and UNL, the fraternity has 270 days to start construction on its new house and another 270 to move out of its current one. That tentatively puts moving day in late March 2011.

Prince said he thinks he'll still be living in his fraternity house when that date rolls around.

"I think I would (live-in it) just to be the first class to start off the new house," he said.

ryanboetel@dailynebraskan.com