Businessman who proposed Greek university for Chester dies

CHESTER — Michael Frank Parlamis, the Tenafly, N.J., businessman who wanted to build the country's first Greek university in Chester, died on Sunday, Oct. 6, from complications from pulmonary fibrosis, according to an obituary in The New York Times.

Last month, Orange County Legislator Roxanne Donnery, who is running for county executive, said she got a call several weeks before from the attorney for Michael Parlamis, who in early 2008 proposed a Greek university for the former Camp LaGuardia site in Chester. Still believing the LaGuardia site best for the university, Parlamis wrote to county Executive Edward Diana offering $10.5 million offer and a "no-flip" clause, promising that the owner would retain the property for at least 20 years. Donnery said the county executive never shared this development with legislators.

It is unclear whether the university proposal will continue without Parlamis. The county, since rejecting Parlamis' proposal in 2008, has been working with Mountco Construction and Development Corp. of Scarsdale, which at first wanted to build a commercial complex and more than 900 houses on the LaGuardia site. Mountco has since whittled the number of houses down to 600. The county still owns the site. In the five years the county spent negotiating with Mountco, the LaGuardia site has deteriorated badly, rife with vandalism and broken glass. A major fire broke out there last winter.

Parlamis was a restauranteur and professional engineer who graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University. His obituary in the Times described him as "a man of boundless charity, he was a leader in his own community and a bridge to other communities."

Back in 2008, Parlamis told The Chronicle that he wanted to build the university as a tribute to his Greek heritage. He said it would be open to all students no matter their religious or ethnic affiliation, in the manner of Southern Methodist University or Catholic universities like Fordham. Parlamis received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, which honors immigrant achievement and is a major benefactor to the Greek Orthodox Church.

The New York Times in 2003 reported that Parlamis was planning to build a $325 million Greek heritage museum in Washington, D.C., that would be a replica of the 6th century Haghia Sophia in Istanbul, a former Byzantine cathedral. He told the Times: "We cannot be defined by 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' any more than the Italians can be defined by 'The Sopranos.'"