How Deterioration can inspire the Future, Ohio Northern’s Decaying Fraternity Circle

Ohio Northern University lately has been working to update its image with the buildings on its campus. This first began with the highly needed updating of the student center. The movement then spread onto the renovation of the first floor of the University Library. These updates to the student center and library lead to the creation of more collaborative and trendy areas for the students to use for social and educational purposes. The movement has also spread to the construction of a new engineering facility. This facility was collaboratively created with students providing input to the architects of the new facility in order for the space to most effectively serve as an area for education and collaboration. The updates to the campus has also spread to the existing academic buildings. The science and pharmacy buildings have also been updated on the inside in order to better the learning environments as well as the image of the campus. However, there are still multiple areas of the campus that need to be addressed. One of which is the fraternity circle located at the edge of Northern’s main campus.

The fraternity circle on Ohio Northern University’s campus was once the location for the housing of the University’s fraternities. The circle consists of four buildings each of which were used to house the members of the fraternities. However, after the construction of the campus’ Affinity Commons the fraternities that were still on campus relocated from their houses on the circle to the newly constructed commons. Since the completion of the commons, only two of the facilities on fraternity circle were re-purposed for student housing. These facilities were renamed Five University Parkway and Northern House. Both of these facilities were plagued with problems including a lack of air conditioning, poor laundry facilities, and poor insulation. This lead to the ultimate closing of these facilities, and the total vacancy of fraternity circle. The houses on the circle have been vacant for anywhere from ten to two years, and the structures are beginning to show their age and lack of maintenance. However, the University has shown no intention of caring for the houses. The most recent work done to the structures was the complete gutting of the Sigma Pi house on the circle after the fraternity’s reinstatement on campus, and this process lasted no more than a week.

Since the clearing out of the Sigma Pi house, there has been no maintenance or rehabilitation work done on the facilities. In fact, two of the buildings have been designated as storage spaces, and all four of the structures have entered the advanced stages of decay. Shingles on the roofs have begun to peel and fall, windows are broken and cracked, and the letters of the fraternities have also been removed from the remains of the houses as the state of disrepair becomes more and more advanced. Now, with a University that has been taking such initiative to update and improve its image such as Ohio Northern, why are these abandoned and decrepit buildings left standing? The answer for the longest time was the fact that the University technically did not have custody of the facilities. The two that were used for student housing were surrendered to the university several years ago, however the other buildings were still under a contracted lease with the fraternity chapters. These leases were the main reason for the University to not do any demolition or updates on the structures. However, now the University has possession of three out of the four buildings on the circle, with the fourth still tied up in a lease and being utilized as storage. Since most of the buildings are back under university jurisdiction, ideas have been thrown around for the last few years as to what could be done with the space on fraternity circle.

With the University’s sights set on expansion, there have been talks of using the space currently occupied by the decrepit fraternity circle to create more student housing. With increasing class sizes in areas such as Engineering, Pharmacy, and Industrial Technologies the University is struggling to find space to house these new students. The new engineering building has been designed to nearly double the class sizes able to be housed, the technology and manufacturing majors are planned to occupy the old Engineering facility (a facility double the size of their existing one), and the music and dance department are planning to utilize the old industrial tech building as rehearsal and class space. The current housing available on campus is not equipped to handle this influx of new students, with the main campus buildings being so densely occupied that overflow housing had to be established in two halls that were built before many of the academic buildings on campus. This problem has led the University to the idea of re-purposing the fraternity circle as apartment or suit-style living for these new students. The idea was also pitched by several members of the on campus student association ION (Innovators of Ohio Northern), but received push-back from the university due to the problems with the leases on the facilities as well as lack of funds. These hurdles still exist for the university today, after the multi-million dollar fundraising campaign for the engineering facility as well as a replacement of the campus’ water management drains. However, the fraternity 

circle is definitely an area of known interest to the university.

The fraternity circle of Ohio Northern was once a well-planned and utilized space for the on campus social societies to live and bond as groups. However, years of abandonment and disrepair have left the structures on this portion of campus to be in a state to which they most likely should be condemned. The University has shown interest in the space on which the structures stand as places for additional student housing to be erected in response to the expansion of several departments on campus. The idea has also been advocated by several student run associations, but tie ups due to leases and other factors have created a stalemate in the progress of revitalizing this area of campus. However, with the path to revitalization that the university has been on lately, I would not be surprised if we began to see significant change to this area of campus in the relatively near future.