Site Of NIU Shooting To Be Demolished

University Building Where Gunman Killed 5 Students Will Be Razed And Replaced

(AP)  The Northern Illinois University building where a gunman killed five students in an auditorium lecture hall, then committed suicide on the stage, will be demolished and replaced, school officials said Wednesday.

Cole Hall - a huge classroom building at the center of the 25,000-student campus - will be replaced with a state-of-the-art general classroom building to be named Memorial Hall, the university said.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich planned an afternoon news conference to announce state funding for the project. Students on campus seemed torn about the announcement.

"Some people can't stand to look at it, and others see it as a memorial as it is," 19-year-old freshman Cassie Dodd said. "Personally, I think it should stay. It's a part of us now."

Junior Jessica Burnside disagreed.

"It's a trophy of a tragic, destructive event," said Burnside, 21. "Nobody wants to be reminded of it."

Former graduate student Steven Kazmierczak burst into the auditorium on Valentine's Day, carrying at least four guns, and fired dozens of shots into a geology class, killing five and wounding at least 16 people before turning the gun on himself.

Demolition of the 40-year-old Cole Hall could begin this spring, and construction on the new building is expected to begin next summer, NIU spokeswoman Melanie Magara told The (DeKalb) Daily Chronicle. Students could use the new facility as early as December 2010.

At Virginia Tech, where student Seung-Hui Cho gunned down 32 people before killing himself, officials decided to turn the classroom space in Norris Hall into a peace center and interactive learning space. Laboratories, which couldn't be relocated because of the risk of damaging expensive equipment, remain in use.

NIU resumed classes Monday after closing campus for more than a week. The school has established a memorial scholarship fund in honor of the students who died.