First phase of Greek housing project is on schedule

Phase one of the university's new Greek housing project is underway. Just north of the Show Me Center, two buildings -- the first of four -- have been erected. Four fraternities have signed leases for the buildings. The first two will be completed in August.

In October, $7.7 million was approved by Southeast Missouri State University's board of regents for construction of the project's first phase. With design and engineering costs, the project will cost $9.29 million for all four houses, Bruce Skinner, assistant vice president for student success and auxiliary services, said.

According to Skinner, construction is on schedule and within budget for the first two houses. By the end of April they will be "under roof," working on the interiors. Construction will be finished by Aug. 1, when the Sigma Nu and Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternities take possession of the residences.

By the beginning of the summer, construction will begin on the next two houses that are scheduled to be completed by Aug. 1, 2017, in time for the Pi Kappa Alpha and Sigma Chi fraternities to take possession and move in, Skinner said.

The four houses are the only new constructions planned for the area, though there is the potential for more.

Construction at Southeast Missouri State University's new Greek Village continues Monday in Cape Girardeau.Laura Simon

"The design allows for future expansion," Skinner said. "The site will allow us to go up to seven houses."

The houses are owned and operated by the university and will have staff living on the premises.

"It will operate very similar to the rest of on-campus housing," Skinner said.

But the project does not end with the new constructions. The university's historic preservation department is working to document the historic building scheduled to come down later this year to make room for the new housing.

The Ochs-Shivelbine House, also known as the Sigma Nu Shivelbine Mansion, will be razed in the first part of this summer.

"We currently have a graduate student working on documenting the house: pictures, measurements," Skinner said. "She's actually done some interviews with people who have lived in the house in the past, to sort of talk about the house itself, but also the history of the individuals that lived in the house in the past."

"Not everything can be saved, but there are ways to mitigate the negative affect, and one of the ways to do that is to document it before it's torn down," Steven Hoffman, historic preservation program coordinator at Southeast Missouri State University, said.

The documentation of the historic building will be available in Special Collections at Kent Library.

Unfortunately, Hoffman said, the historic preservation department was unable to document the Greystone Estate before it was razed at the development site in March. Built in 1921, the home was the first country club in Cape Girardeau and was used for years by Southeast fraternities.

Hoffman said it is unfortunate there wasn't a way to preserve and adaptively use the Shivelbine House, but in its destruction, the historic preservation department was able to use it to help students develop practical, hands-on skills in working in the field of historic preservation.

"This is one of the realities that's out there: sometimes new projects or new roads have to take historic resources. So it's a teachable moment both in the episode itself happening, but also helping students develop their skill sets," Hoffman said.

bbrown@semissourian.com

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