A couple weeks ago I took some pictures of a fraternity house near UNC in the throws of demolition. My timing was perfect. Parts of the building were still standing and there were great piles of rubble. Before I posted those photos, I tried to find out why the building was being torn down and what was coming to that spot. I couldn’t find anything.
Well, now my timing was perfect once again, and I have taken pictures of a second fraternity house coming down. Here is a link to the Flickr slide show.
And I have found out why they were being torn down. The passage below is from the minutes of the January 2007 UNC Board of Trustess meeting.
Disposition by Severance of the Finley Golf Course Road Fraternities to remove by demolition the vacant fraternity houses located at 200, 204 and 216 Finley Golf Course Road in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Demolition is recommended in order to mitigate potential nuisance issues. Additionally, it has been determined that the cost to renovate and upfit existing structures to ADA and regulatory codes would exceed the value of buildings in their current conditions and that a greater value and higher use can be realized by the demolition
This tells me why they are being torn down, but not why the fraternity houses were empty to begin with. I probably just need to ask a UNC student.
