UI purchased old PIKE house, plans to demolish abandoned building
The blue paint is peeling away, windows are boarded up and graffiti covers the walls. The Pi Kappa Alpha house has sat abandoned on the New Greek Row hill on Nez Pearce Drive for several years, and according to University of Idaho Dean of Students Bruce Pitman, the house won’t be there much longer.
UI plans to demolish the former residence of Pi Kappa Alpha house, commonly known as PIKE Fraternity, to make room for a new space.
“PIKE exists without their house here,” Pitman said.
In 2007, PIKE relinquished its charter because of declining membership, among other things. However, PIKE is an active fraternity today, as it made its triumphant return to UI in 2010. Today, the fraternity has 50 members and does not yet have an official house.
“Since PIKE relinquished the house, several other fraternities have leased the house since 2007,” said Gerard Billington, real estate officer for UI.
The PIKE house essentially served as a rental for other Greek organizations, Billington said. He said many other organizations took up temporary residence in the house for various reasons such as renovations or constructions to their own facilities.
After serving as a temporary residence, the need to use the house was gone and it was left abandoned, Pitman said. The university has been concerned about the house for several years now.
The PIKE house has endured natural depreciation over the years — windows are boarded up or the glass is broken and the house has been vandalized more times than Pitman can count.
The land under which the PIKE house was constructed has always been owned by UI, but the house itself was owned by PIKE’s national office. Billington said UI purchased the house recently to gain control over the area.
“The university has always owned the land and leased it to Sigma Chi in 1959,” Billington said. “PIKE took over the lease in the 1970s.”
Pitman said he’s happy UI finally has control of the house so it can repurpose the area for another use.
“We are pleased that we now have control,” Pitman said. “Since the house has become abandoned it has become an unattractive nuisance and an unsightly hazard.”
Pitman said UI officials met last week to decide the fate of the house and the property beneath it.
“The university plans to demolish the house and open the space,” Billington said. “The University of Idaho is open to ground-leasing the land again.”
Billington said repairing the current structure was quickly ruled out because the costs were high due its degrading condition. He said the significant physical damage, vandalism and mold damage made repairing the house economically unviable.
Billington said UI prides itself on being a university where a large number of students live on campus and the university wants to continue with efforts to keep students onsite.
“The university is a residential campus,” Billington said. “We expect and count on students living on campus, so if a fraternity or sorority would like to build a nice new facility on the open space that would be an excellent use for the property.”
Macklin Brown can be reached at a[email protected]