The house formerly occupied by the Sigma Phi Epsilon (SigEp) fraternity at 114 Curtis St. this spring will be converted from a residential space into office property for use by the Feinstein International Center (FIC).
The house has been vacant since the end of May, when SigEp members were required to leave after an unsanctioned Senior Week party resulted in extensive damage to the property, according to Walnut Hill Properties General Manager Bruce Ketchen.
The university is looking to relocate SigEp downhill where the majority of the Greek system resides, Director of University Space Management and Planning Lois Stanley said.
FIC, an institute associated with the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, works to develop and promote responses to protect and improve the lives of people in crisis−affected and marginalized communities. The organization had to vacate its current location on the fourth floor of 200 Boston Ave. because the space is being converted to labs needed by the biology department, Director of the Feinstein Institute Peter Walker said.
"The university was obliged to offer us a new home," Walker said.
"Feinstein was good enough to work with us on various possibilities of where they might move out," Stanley said.
Walker said that construction is on schedule at the house, and FIC anticipates that the move−in process will occur during the last week of April.
Stanley and Ketchen worked together with FIC to find the best place to relocate the institute on campus.
"As we looked at all the options, this seemed to be the one that most closely met the need of the user," Ketchen told the Daily. "This was largely driven by the size of the space, the location of the space, and the desire of the tenant to be in a location like this."
Walnut Hill Properties and FIC are currently in the process of negotiating a five− to seven−year lease, Ketchen said.
According to Walker, the most difficult aspect of the move was convincing the city of Medford to rezone the building from residential to office property.
"Our argument to the city was look, we're a known tenant, every other building surrounding that building is Tufts University office property, and it's going to be well looked after," he said.
However, now that the vote has passed, the process of meeting building regulations for public spaces has presented a new set of challenges. For example, to avoid the installation of a $100,000−200,000 elevator, a compromise was reached with the city to make the first floor accessible to the disabled, Walker said.
"The payoff is that we are not allowed to have the public enter the second and third floors where the faculty offices are," he said. This means students and visitors are allowed to meet with professors only on the first floor.
Other important steps in the conversion included enlisting an architect to redesign the space from a fraternity atmosphere to that of an office, a fire chief to install and assess a sprinkler system and representatives from University Information Technology (UIT) to set up the wireless network, according to Walker.
"The changes that are being made there are really tailoring it to an office use," Ketchen said.
Contributions from Walnut Hill Properties and the Friedman School are being used to fund the project, Walker said.
"Even though it's all internal Tufts money, we all still have to sign agreements with each other," Walker said.
All the damage done by SigEp members, however, was repaired before the office renovations began, Ketchen said.
The brothers involved in the incident contributed over $10,000, about 85 percent, to the repair bills, SigEp President Michael McCarthy, a junior, said in an email.
The remainder was paid off by alumni and chapter budget surpluses to cover costs separate from the Senior Week party damage, including covering up fraternity letters and re−insulating the walls, he said.
The SigEp brothers have a meeting today with the university to discuss future housing options for the fraternity, McCarthy said.
According to McCarthy, the fraternity had a three−day ultimatum to turn in the names of those responsible last May. The seniors involved feared not being able to graduate and the majority of the other brothers were unaware of what had happened, as they had already left campus for the summer.
"To our knowledge, at no point was an investigation launched by the university or [Tufts University Police Department] into what occurred other than to demand answers that did not exist from representatives of the fraternity who were not present at the incident," he said.
Currently, the brothers are living in various residences around campus but come together for weekly meetings in Pearson Chemical Laboratory, McCarthy said.
"When it comes down to making a choice for freshmen to decide which house to accept a bid from, the lack of a house really hurt us," he said.
