KNOXVILLE — Sorority women at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, will take a big step this weekend as they break ground on the fourteen structures that will make up Sorority Village on Morgan Hill. The ground breaking begins at 2:00 p.m. Sunday, May 1, at the UT Visitors Center on Neyland Drive.
The university is completing infrastructure work at the site, which will allow the individual sorority chapters to begin work on their houses, which will be built in phases of several houses at a time. Working closely with the sorority chapters, the university hopes to welcome its first group of residents to Sorority Village in the fall of 2012.
In total, thirteen of UT’s seventeen sororities will have residential facilities in the village. The university is funding a portion of a common-use facility that will house administrative offices and meeting space. One sorority is funding the other portion of the common-use facility to have a dedicated office and meeting space within that building.
The houses will range from 9,000 to 17,000 square feet and will each house up to forty-eight women. Each house is estimated to cost between $3 million and $5 million. Once construction is complete, the total private investment in Sorority Village is expected to exceed $45 million. Sorority chapters are funding their houses in full through private donations and mortgage agreements that will be paid through residential rent and chapter fees.
UT’s Board of Trustees approved a proposal in 2006 that set aside approximately twenty-one acres of university-owned property on the southeast corner of Neyland Drive and Kingston Pike, across from the university’s Visitors Center. For more than thirty years, UT’s sorority women have lived in several residence halls and used meeting space in the Panhellenic Building, which was built in 1963.
The development will be fenced and will incorporate modern security features. Landscaping plans will highlight the village site and streetscape, with the goal of making the land as picturesque as it has always been. The village will have its own parking, but also will become part of the university’s T bus service route.
Sororities slated to build in the new community are:
- Alpha Chi Omega
- Alpha Delta Pi
- Alpha Kappa Alpha*
- Alpha Omicron Pi
- Chi Omega
- Delta Delta Delta
- Delta Gamma
- Delta Zeta
- Kappa Delta
- Kappa Kappa Gamma
- Phi Mu
- Pi Beta Phi
- Sigma Kappa
- Zeta Tau Alpha
*Alpha Kappa Alpha will not have a house in the village but will have meeting space in the shared-use building.
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CONTACT:
Beth Gladden (865-771-1284, bgladden@utk.edu)