BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) - Members of the Bloomington City Council hope that giving a historic designation to a neighborhood next to the Indiana University campus will lead school officials to reconsider a plan for tearing down six houses.
The council voted Wednesday to approve creation of the University Courts Historic District, which is where the IU Foundation has offered the houses to Phi Gamma Delta fraternity in a proposed land swap, The Herald-Times reported (https://bit.ly/O6HRyN ).
The council’s action is largely symbolic since university officials don’t need permission from the city to demolish the houses because it is a state institution.
City Councilman Chris Sturbaum said even though the university has long included a building at the site in its master plan doesn’t mean destroying the houses should be the route IU takes.
“This neighborhood grew up with the university and it will be an asset in the long run to the university, and destroying it is careless and a mistake,” Sturbaum said.
Most of the neighborhood’s 65 houses were built between 1906 and 1934, and their occupants included a governor, mayor, county judge and various IU professors and coaches. The neighborhood, which received state historic status in 1992 and national recognition in 2007, is also the last area in the city with brick streets.
The university owns more than half of the properties in the neighborhood a couple blocks north of the Memorial Union building.
IU officials have said the land swap is contingent on Phi Gamma Delta’s ability to raise money for construction a new fraternity house.
University spokesman Mark Land declined to comment Thursday on the City Council’s action.
The proposed land swap involves Phi Gamma Delta giving up its current fraternity house on the southwestern corner of campus next to the IU Maurer School of Law.
Resident Elizabeth Cox-Ash told council members said the university has other places where a fraternity house could be built without tearing down part of the city’s history.
“To have that thrown away in a dumpster is criminal in my view,” she said. “Shame on Indiana University for even considering it.”
Another resident, Brandt Downey, said the council was wasting its time since IU could bulldoze all six houses at will.
“This ordinance will not stop them from tearing down those houses,” he said.
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Information from: The Herald Times, https://www.heraldtimesonline.com
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