‘Adaptive reuse’ ideas emerge in debate over ATO house near Purdue

Plus, suspect at large after homicide in Walmart parking lot. Purdue Convos opens season with two acts this week. Tribute to Dustin Hopkins set.

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Plans to impose a historic district on the former Alpha Tau Omega house, in an effort to save the century-old fraternity house from demolition at the corner of Russell and Fourth streets near Purdue, were peeled off tonight’s West Lafayette City Council’s agenda for the third consecutive month, as the promise of a new plan emerges.

Rough sketches shared with the city’s Historic Preservation Commission show a project that would demolish part of the vacant structure, retaining the architectural feel of a building once referred to as the Maltese Manor and incorporating that into a new construction.

Adaptive reuse, the Historic Preservation Commission called it during a meeting in August.

A good enough reason to hold off another month – at least – for a vote on an involuntary local historic district, the city council called it last week.

One suggestion, filed with the West Lafayette Historic Preservation Commission, was to demolish a portion of the former ATO house while retaining the most distinctive elements of the structure at 314 Russell St. (Image provided)

Representatives for the developers and city officials are meeting in the interim to figure out what sort of development both could agree on. That, and finding something Purdue officials – who would have a say in the project, under arrangements set up when West Lafayette annexed Purdue in 2014 – could live with, too.