After almost a year of construction, UF’s Theta Chi (ΘΧ) chapter held a grand opening ceremony for its new house Friday.
Nearly 350 alumni attended the event, but with their dates and families, the crowd swelled to about 700 people, said Theta Chi Administrative Vice President Kyle Rodriguez.
“Two years ago, some of our alumni — the main one being George Kramer — started a campaign to build a brand-new, state-of-the-art fraternity house,” said the 20-year-old UF sustainability and the built environment junior. “It’s a pretty awesome house.”
The house cost $4.3 million to build, and it was financed through about $2 million of chapter fundraising, alumni donations and a loan, Rodriguez said.
Friday’s ceremony lasted about an hour and honored various donors and active brothers.
The event also featured the unveiling of two bronze Gator statues, which Rodriguez called “a gift for the alumni.”
The statues were created by the same artist who made the Gator statue in front of Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
George Kramer, the head of the realty board of directors for 10 years, spearheaded the campaign.
He said that there have been attempts to fund a new house in the past, but they were all unsuccessful.
“Most of the houses on the road are in need of renovation,” he said. “As the facility deteriorated, we knew it was something we had to do in order to position the fraternity to be able to continue at the university. It was reaching a point where we didn’t think it was going to be able to continue to function as a residence.”
Kramer called the grand opening ceremony a “really satisfying culmination” of the efforts of himself and the board.
“We started the capital campaign, which I chaired, back in April 2011 with zero dollars for the new house,” Kramer said. “Now, we’re at about $1.85 million and counting in pledges.”
The money comes from more than 500 donors, the greatest of which only donated $50,000, Kramer said.
“To have raised over a million dollars without a six-figure donor is impressive,” he said. “To get to almost $2 million without one is even more so.”
Although Kramer doesn’t have college-aged children yet, he said he remains hopeful that many generations of Theta Chi brothers will enjoy the house.
“We’re celebrating our centennial in 2016,” he said, “so it feels good knowing that we’ll be positioned at UF for the next 100 years.”
A version of this story ran on page 1 on 9/3/2013 under the headline "UF Theta Chi opens its new, $4.3 million Frat Row house"
Journalism junior and current UF Theta Chi chapter brother Garrett Mastronardi, 20, talks with an FSU Theta Chi chapter alumnus Friday afternoon at the grand opening of the new Theta Chi house on UF’s campus. The new house cost about $4.3 million to build.
