The house at 388 N. Main Street is now officially owned by Allegheny College. The college purchased the property from Theta Chi on Aug. 31, expanding the school’s physical footprint by 5,599 square-feet, 22 bedrooms, nine bathrooms and parking for 12 vehicles. The Theta Chi house was the last fraternity house not owned and operated by the college, but members of the organization say the purchase opens up new opportunities.
Allegheny was not interested in the property when it first went on sale, but after all the other bids fell through, the college stepped in to make an offer.
“Many people in the community, I think, already thought the college owned that property and so it’s an opportunity for us to kind of actually bring that into our portfolio,” said Vice President for Enrollment Management Ellen Johnson.
A permanent plan for the property is expected by the end of this semester, according to Johnson, who raised a number of possibilities: renovation into non-fraternity housing, development of a green space, or even installation of a second welcome sign like the one at the intersection of Loomis Street and North Main.
“Part of the planning process that we’ll be doing this fall is determining what makes the most fiscal sense for the college and what’s the best use of that space,” Johnson added.
In the short-term, the property will fall under Allegheny’s maintenance and security umbrella; since the house is now college-owned, the offices of Public Safety and Physical Plant now have full access to the building for upkeep and security, Johnson said.
Prior to the sale, that upkeep was managed by the Beta Chi Alumni Association for the Theta Chi fraternity at Allegheny. Ken Kutzer, ’18, the president of the association, said that repairs and maintenance were beyond the fraternity’s reach.
“The house, as you can imagine, is very very old,” Kutzer said. “A lot of the things — basic utilities like plumbing, some electrical issues — there were a lot of major issues in the property that needed to be corrected.”
Originally built in 1923, the house passed to Theta Chi in 1942 from the mother of an alumnus who died in World War II. The association was formed later to manage the property, using donations from chapter alumni and a portion of the brothers’ room and board fees from Allegheny.
Yet by the turn of the 21st century, the fraternity was already considering moving on from the house.
“The conversation about selling the property has been going on for 20 years now — even when I was a student there,” Kutzer said. “But when I was there, there were like 25 guys living in the house, and we were getting a much bigger rent check as a result of that. As the membership has declined, our revenue from the school is declining from the rent check and deposits.”
When Kutzer was elected president of the alumni association in 2021, the group was considering a large fundraising effort to provide for needed renovations. However, Theta Chi’s international leadership advised the association that too much was needed in too short a time.
“It would have amounted to millions of dollars that we did not have,” Kutzer said.
After much debate, the association voted unanimously last July to put the house up for sale for $175,000.
“While the house was a big part of the chapter’s history, it wasn’t the chapter,” Kutzer said. “And what we care about is the well-being of the chapter, of the fraternity.”
By January 2023, there had been seven showings and a real estate investor had put in an offer for $100,000, The Campus reported at the time.
However, that investor later retracted their offer, Kutzer said, leaving the Crawford County Drug and Alcohol Executive Commission as the only interested buyer. The CCDEAC planned to use the property for substance abuse recovery programs, but withdrew their own offer in July due to unexpectedly high renovation costs, the Meadville Tribune reported at the time.
It was then that the college stepped in to purchase the property at $150,000.
The current Theta Chi brothers are also first in line for joint special-interest housing on Loomis Street managed by the college, Kutzer said, adding that there are no plans for the fraternity to purchase or manage another property.
The proceeds from the sale will be reinvested into the chapter, Kutzer said. Though he will be stepping down as president at the end of this month, Kutzer added that both the current brothers and alumni are excited about the future of the organization
“I don’t want anyone to think it’s the end of Theta Chi at Allegheny College,” he said. “We’re still here, we’re going to be just as strong as we were when we lived in that property — in fact, I think we might be a little stronger, now that we don’t have the property holding us back in so many different ways.
