The SDSU Chapter of the Farmhouse Fraternity announced that it will be breaking ground later this semester for its new and improved house on Greek Village.

The groundbreaking ceremony will be held April 25 and construction will officially begin a week after finals in May.

Taylor Thooft, president of the fraternity, and a junior majoring in pre-pharmacy said the new house would help the fraternity stay competitive.

“Having a house hold 32 men year in and year out can put a lot of wear and tear on [the house],” Thooft said. “They already had to do major renovations, I think, in the early 2000s. It’s just kind of that time where a new house is that next step to go.”

The new house will hold up to 48 men and the blueprints also indicate an elevator in the layout.

Thooft said that besides the house being increased in size there would also be an expanded library and study room, which will have a large conference room. The fraternity will have individual study rooms large enough for four people to use.

Jeff Davis, the association president of Farmhouse, believes these improvements are a good addition for the fraternity.

“Part of our objective is to have good grades and studies,” Davis said. “Grades are important to the fraternity as a whole, so having a good environment to foster this is important.”

With an expanded library, the fraternity will be able to better store its memorabilia dating back to 1966 when the chapter was started.

“We’re actually figuring out how to store all of the memorabilia right now,” Thooft said. “We’re approaching our 49th year on campus, so that memorabilia will be going in there, such as old awards, pictures and yearbooks.”

The current Farmhouse house is more than 35 years old, according to Davis, and the concept to build a new house has been in place since 2009. Fundraising has been in progress since 2011 with most of the donations given by alumni. Other donations were made by “friends of the fraternity” and parents, according to Thooft.

Farmhouse hopes to use the current house as a house on Greek Village for Ceres, the sister women’s fraternity to Farmhouse.

Molly Reissenberger, president of Ceres, and a sophomore exercise science and pre-physical therapy major, hopes that the plan will come through.

“I think it’s a great thing,” Reissenberger said. “We’ve been dreaming of living on Greek Village for years, and we didn’t think that it would happen for years, so this opportunity would be really great.”

Reissenberger said that the plan is going through the State College Development Association.

“If you just turn [the current house] 90 degrees from where it is now and move it one lot to the south, that’s exactly where we’ll be,” Reissenberger said about where the house will be moved.

While the house will be built over the summer break and during the fall semester, Farmhouse residents will be                                                                     displaced to Hanson hall.