I think that your decision to go dry is a good one - given the success of many of the dry fraternities on campus. I'd feel differently if dry chapters didn't have such a huge precense on campus, ie. FarmHouse, Phi Delt, Alpha Gamma Rho (are they still dry?) and others. All of these chapters are pretty big on campus and as you said, in numbers and campus involvement (committees and intramurals) plus their GPAs aren't bad from the information that I have from this spring.
Having lived next door to your chapter house (when Phi Kappa Psi was still there and with the chapter you rented it out to) I'm well aware of the condition it was in when I graduated in the fall of 2001 and I somehow doubt that things improved after I left.
I would agree that a LOT of these problems could be solved by the chapter facility being dry. While some of your alumni may not be thrilled that you wish to be dry, I think it is definetely good for the chapter for so many reasons - if your fraternity ever nationally goes dry (it will be a non-issue), there will be a lot less liability, maintenance of the facility will be so much easier.
I know that you have some type of corp or advisory board since I know your chapter owns the house. They could decide to have you go dry in a few years if the decision wasn't made now. I know this has happened to at least one chapter on campus in the past three years after the chapter (which never left campus) moved back into their facility after rebuilding it. The result of the alumni board making their facility dry resulting in a large group leaving the chapter (like Russ said). One of my guy friends is on the advisory board for his fraternity at ISU and they made the decision to have the chapter go dry starting this fall. I honestly think that by dry chapters are starting to make up the majority of fraternities on campus as opposed to the one or two chapters that were dry when I started in the fall of 1997. I'm thinking there's at least 11 dry chapters now if not more, am I right?
I think it's great that your chapter is recolonizing and that you'll eventually be moving back in to the house.
-Bekah
Edited because I can't string sentences together. Glad that the journalism degree is coming in handy. 