Feb 27, 2008 5:53 pm US/Central
NIU's Cole Hall To Be Demolished
Building Where 5 Were Shot Dead Will Be Replaced With New Classroom Structure
DE KALB, Ill. (CBS) ―
There is a plan to demolish Northern Illinois University's Cole Hall and construct a new building in its place.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich plans to ask state lawmakers to pay for a $40 million classroom building, which will be called Memorial Hall.
CBS 2's Mike Puccinelli reports the hallways inside Cole Hall are empty now and they'll remain that way until the now-shuttered building is demolished.
"We see reminders all around us of our tragedy," said NIU President John Peters.
But the biggest reminder of where Steven Kazmierczak shot five students to death and injured more than fifteen others is the building where he perpetrated his massacre.
That's why the university's president decided shortly after the tragedy that Cole Hall had to go.
"That site outta be consecrated," Peters said. "We outta not put anything on that site."
So the hall whose doors are emblazoned with the pictures of the students who lost their lives inside will instead become a memorial to their lives cut short.
"We will build a new hall called Memorial Hall to memorialize the students who lost their lives and to remember what happened, but also to look to the future," Blagojevich said.
But first the $40 million building must be approved by the general assembly.
Some students say the best way to honor their fallen classmates is to leave Cole Hall standing as a silent testament to where they lost their lives.
"I just like the idea of keeping it because we could walk by and remember what happened," said one student said.
But others say knocking down the building is the best way to live up to NIU's motto: Forward, together forward.
I think it might be a good idea only because some people might not be able to take going back into the classrooms," sophomore Devin Days said.
"I think our campus needs a change after all we've been through so I think it's a very good idea," sophomore Courtney Borges added.
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